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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222548">terrible ideas</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesso/pseuds/gracelesso'>gracelesso</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli'>jinlinli</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus'>silentwalrus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TERRIBLE ideas [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>A Little Light Choking, Amateur Pharmacology, BDSM, Breathplay, Dirty Talk, Ed Elric Decides To Do Molly, Face Slapping, FaceFucking, Hair-pulling, He Has No Ragrets, Humor, M/M, One (1) Orgasm, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Recreational Drug Use, Rough Oral Sex, Roy Mustang’s Fancy Pajamas, Roy Mustang’s Mustache: The Debate, Sex Talk, handjobs, mean top</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:35:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,400</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23222548</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesso/pseuds/gracelesso, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinlinli/pseuds/jinlinli, https://archiveofourown.org/users/silentwalrus/pseuds/silentwalrus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Ed gets high, and Roy gets bothered.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edward Elric/Roy Mustang</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TERRIBLE ideas [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696942</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>148</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>974</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was cowritten by me, gracelesso, aetataureate and jinlinli, the latter two of which will be added as cocreators as soon as we (me) can get our (my) thumb out of our ass. They are angels and not to blame for me essentially force feeding them crystal meth</p>
<p>title from terrible ideas by cyn</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Roy answers the door at half past eleven, because anybody who works their way around his emergency wards in order to do this kind of number on his doorbell on a Saturday night deserves to get their ass kicked by him personally. If there isn’t a developing emergency registering as some kind of potential world-ender, he is getting his goddamn gloves.</p>
<p>It’s Ed. Of course it’s Ed, wearing nothing but sweatpants and a half-zipped sweater despite the cold, hair piled high in an unstable bun and looking dangerously bright-eyed for this time of night. This is not actually something Roy can characterize as typical behavior, because despite the usual child-of-night spikes and leather he knows for a fact Ed is a morning person.</p>
<p>“Wow, it’s <em>Roy</em>,” Ed says, sounding a lot more East than he usually does. Considering that this is Roy’s house, and Ed found his way here of his own free will, the sarcastic awe in his tone feels a little unwarranted. </p>
<p>“Edward,” Roy says, more cordially than Ed deserves given it’s past nine on a weekend and Ed’s using his hick voice on him. “What drives you to darken my doorstep at this time of night.” </p>
<p>"Hey Roy," says Ed, not even bothering to make eye contact in favor of staring at the doorframe about three inches to the left of Roy's ear. "I found you."</p>
<p>Roy resists the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose so early in the interaction. “Yes,” he says. “You did. Why.” </p>
<p>“Wanted you,” Ed says frankly, like this is the kind of thing they say to each other. Roy’s stomach, which apparently has no sense of how to assess a situation, does a slow flip. “At first I thought - wow, anyone but Roy. But then I thought, you know, what if I picked <em> Roy</em>? Hey! Roy.” </p>
<p>Roy’s mental switch is busy flipping from “offended” to “flattered” and then back again before it registers, belatedly, that Ed’s vague rocking back and forth is less his usual idle motion and more him fully swaying with the breeze. It occurs to Roy that this is not, in fact, the behavior and speech of a sober person. “Are you <em>drunk</em>?”</p>
<p>“I’m not <em> drunk</em>,” Ed says, too loud. His eyes aren't quite focused, and he's doing something odd and repetitive with his hands. Thumb, forefinger, thumb, too fast. Ed's restless as a rule, but this is out of character. The accent is probably not out on purpose, then. Roy sets his teeth. </p>
<p>“Listen,” Ed says hurriedly, at least cogent enough to understand Roy’s expression. “I’m. Look. I’m pretty sure I ate god like. An hour ago but he's trying to. Burrow his way out of my sinuses right now and I thought I could handle it but I can’t? Handle it? So. Can we. Please. Save the judgment for later because I am off my fucking tits right now my teeth are vibrating and I need. Skin contact? Carpet. Don’t tell Al.” </p>
<p>He finishes this with a passable imitation of a pleading look, which loses only a little of its effectiveness with how his shoulder keeps twitching. </p>
<p>Roy... does not want this to be his Saturday night. He had been at the tapering end of a blessedly boring evening that involved folding his laundry, catching up on a long-neglected novel and getting an early night. He’d forgotten to take off his reading glasses before coming to the door. There’s a part of him that’s grateful Ed’s too distracted to make fun of him for it.</p>
<p>“Haha,” Ed adds, now staring directly at the glasses and grinning, apparently totally forgetting that he’s begging Roy to babysit him while he rides out god knows what kind of high. “Four-eyes.” </p>
<p>Roy takes a moment to envision a future where he shuts the door in Ed’s face and lets someone else deal with this. It’s a thoroughly pleasant fantasy, if possibly unethical. Riza would disapprove. And Alphonse has enough connections in Xing to sabotage any one of the early trade negotiations with the newly-crowned Dragon Emperor.</p>
<p>Roy sets his jaw at an attitude becoming of an officer. “Get inside.” </p>
<p>Roy can almost <em> see </em>Ed drop the last fragile threads of his personal responsibility, just like he did that vase at the Xingese ambassador’s house. Also like with the vase, it is on Roy to catch them. Ed teeters into the house after him, both arms stuck out to trail his hands on the walls. “Rooo-oyyyy,” he sings under his breath, which is objectively terrible, not in the least because all his youthful teen shrieking has left him with a voice that, when speaking, has the permanent crackle of a pack-a-day smoker. Lifted in song, the rasp supplements nature’s own dubious gift of a tenor like a donkey trying to mate with an angry vulture. “In Roy’s hooouse. Haha. Roooy.” </p>
<p>“That’s me,” Roy says, wishing it weren’t. </p>
<p>“What’re you doing here, Roy?”</p>
<p>“I live here,” Roy says, almost not at all through his teeth. </p>
<p>“No no no.” Ed sounds like a cross toddler faced with the reality that his limited vocabulary lacks the ability to convey nuance. “What’re you <em> doing</em>.”</p>
<p>“Trying and failing to find some semblance of peace and quiet,” Roy says, more to whichever sadistic deity made this his problem than to Ed himself. It’s not like he’s really listening. “I think it would be best if I call Alphonse to pick you up.”</p>
<p>Ed flops forward, whapping his face into Roy’s shoulder. “Noooo,” he moans, surprisingly pitifully. “Nooo Al. No.”</p>
<p>Roy turns, gingerly peels Ed off, and holds him at arm’s length. Ed bats at Roy’s hand ineffectually. His bun wobbles on the top of his head. This man has punched a genocidal partially-ascended demigod in the face. “Edward,” Roy says. “We’re going to call Alphonse. He would be <em> much </em>better at this than I am.” </p>
<p>“Nobody’s better than Al,” Ed agrees firmly, like he’d been worried Roy might have forgotten Ed’s oft-stated opinion on the overall ranking of the people on Earth. “Al is the best. But Al likes to say things like,” and here he drops his voice about an octave and a half, a difference he would have never admitted existed between him and his brother in the sober light of day, <em> “Don’t do drugs!”  </em></p>
<p>He shakes his finger declaratively. Roy has never seen Al do that. </p>
<p>“Al is right,” he tries, because he does not want to encourage any repeat offenses, and also in case Ed is right about Al’s teetotaling ways. “Drugs are bad. You should not do them.” It occurs to him that he has not asked an <em> extremely </em> pressing question. “What did you take?” </p>
<p>“Dunno,” Ed says, suddenly very taken with Roy’s ceiling light. “Hasn’t got a name yet. Might call it…” </p>
<p>His mouth goes slack as he stares into the soft glow of the bulb, and his fingers finally still. Under other circumstances Roy might have lost a beat to musing over the way Ed’s hair traps the light like hot metal, but as it stands he’s too horrified to do more than catalogue the observation and wait for Ed to finish his horrible sentence.</p>
<p>“.... Five,” Ed finally says, from very far away. It’s not even remotely clear whether he’s still trying to answer Roy’s question. </p>
<p>“Five what,” Roy asks, in pursuit of the casualty report. </p>
<p>“Five,” Ed insists, like this is an explanation. He hasn’t taken his eyes off the light. “Only tried four other times.” </p>
<p>“Tried to do drugs?” Roy says incredulously. “Four times? What, did you fuck it up?” </p>
<p>Ed revolves his head away from the light without blinking or moving his torso, like a gigantic, horrifying owl. His mouth splits in a parody of a beatific grin. “You said <em>fuck</em>.”</p>
<p>Roy is struck by a memory of Maes and Gracia having to kindly yet firmly explain to dear three year old Elysia that taking your underpants off at the playground and handing them to adult strangers is a never activity. He reaches for his command voice, and hopes never to have to do so again out of hours. This is why he’s not cut out for parenting. “Edward, tell me what you took.”</p>
<p>Ed rattles off a list of polysyllabic words in which the recurring theme is ‘-amine’. This doesn’t clarify beyond confirming that Ed is very definitely high as a kite, and then veers off into what seems to be an organic chemistry lecture. It’d probably be beyond Roy’s ability to parse even if Ed didn’t repeatedly substitute entire words with gestures and end with, “and don’t worry. I got rid of <em> all </em> the mercury!” This is hair-raising on top of being spectacularly unhelpful, because <em> that </em> sounds like - </p>
<p>“Edward,” Roy says, dreading. “Did you make your own drugs.” </p>
<p>“Yes!” Ed says immediately, with an accompanying both-arms-up victory fistpump. <em> “And they work great!”  </em></p>
<p>Okay. Alright. On the one hand, Ed is an exceptionally good chemist. The odds of him making and then voluntarily ingesting something that will require stomach pumping or god knows what other medical indignities are small. On the other hand, <em> Edward Elric has made his own drugs </em>and is, to quote Breda, tripping absolute tits on them. </p>
<p>It’s just Roy and his starched pajama out here against the cold, dark world. “Okay,” he says grimly. “Alright. Let’s - get you some water.”</p>
<p>That’s got to be a safe bet. Ed has returned to being hypnotized by the hall light, so Roy manages to get a grip on his elbow without incident. “Come on,” he tells Ed, tugging as insistently as he dares. </p>
<p>This makes Ed’s head snap around again. Approximately a third of his bun abandons ship to slither down his shoulder. “Okay!”</p>
<p>Roy coordinates a retreat that gets them about two-thirds of the way to the kitchen before Ed expresses a preference not to walk any more today, and maybe ever again, by sitting down on the floor. Roy accepts this as a tactical pause, and takes the opportunity to conduct a desultory check of Ed’s more accessible vitals - pupil response, pulse - so that he won’t regret not doing it later.</p>
<p>As it happens, he’s given reason to regret doing it immediately. Ed’s pupils are the size of buttons, gloss-black with only the thinnest rim of gold around them. They’re responsive, sure, but apparently not to the stimulus of Roy’s dim hall light. His eyes barely look human.</p>
<p>It should have been Riza, Roy thinks bitterly as the Fullmetal Alchemist attempts to rub his cheek against the scarred back of Roy’s hand as he takes his pulse. Even if Al is really the crusader for purity and teetotalism that Ed seems to think he is - and Roy doubts it; if <em> he </em> had been a suit of armor during his formative years, the <em> shit </em> he would try - Riza would have been a solid second choice. Riza would have turned on the radio, poured a glass of water, and been done for the night. Ed would have <em> behaved </em>for Riza.</p>
<p>Roy has never been so disappointed that he is not, in fact, Riza. He has no delusions whatsoever about the odds of getting Ed to behave for him. The best he can probably hope for is no arson. Even “misdemeanors only” feels like wishful thinking.</p>
<p>God. He should probably go hide his kitchen knives.</p>
<p>“Roy,” Ed says, and Roy has a moment of pure, unmitigated terror when he realizes that Ed’s hand has wandered to his thigh and grabbed a fistful of fabric. Ed stares up at him, eyes blown dark and wide as a hunting panther’s. Roy is running through a handful of scenarios in his mind, trying to establish the one most likely to remove Ed’s hand from the pants without removing the pants from himself, when: “Your pajamas are a <em> lot </em>worse than mine.”</p>
<p>Roy’s pajamas are extraordinarily expensive. “Agree to disagree,” he says stiffly. “Your pajamas are misappropriated gym clothes. Mine are at least intended for sleeping.”</p>
<p>“Mine were <em> free</em>,” Ed says, and Roy can just <em> feel </em> Riza agreeing with Ed’s assessment from a distance. It’s awful. “I got them at <em>training</em>.”</p>
<p>The sweater he’s wearing says CRETAN NATIONAL WATER POLO TEAM. Roy is fairly sure that none of Ed’s trips to Creta have ever involved water polo. He refuses to burn any more brain cells on where exactly Ed <em> did </em>get it from, because the answer is almost certainly ‘one of the rotating cast of hulking gym creatures from his freerunning clique that he inexplicably keeps sleeping with.’</p>
<p>When he’d described them as such to Ed, Ed had snorted, then opened his mouth to explicate at length exactly how inexplicable it wasn’t. Roy tries hard to value conversations like that one. They are pretty much the only thing keeping his ego to a manageable size, even if the management required is equivalent to that of a major industry in a medium-sized country.</p>
<p>“Come on, up,” he says aloud, heading off at the pass an emotion that, on a lesser man, might be described as jealousy. “Let’s get you… sitting down. Somewhere else, I mean.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Ed says agreeably, elbowing himself to his feet. The motion starts out as a graceful uncoiling but quickly descends into tragedy. Roy takes quiet, acidic delight in watching Ed discover that his center of gravity is <em> not </em> where he left it. </p>
<p>Fate exacts payment immediately by pitching Ed straight at the eggshell finish of the walls. The minute his hand touches the paint, his eyes go wide in a way that tells Roy that getting Ed out of the hallway and onto the couch has just become a mission of extreme and undue tactical complexity. Objectively, Roy knows that Ed is compact, rather than just small. Objectively, he knows that Ed isn't the type to take kindly to being steered. But the couch is less than fifteen feet from them, and even with their relative strength-to-size ratios and the fact that Ed's currently reconfigured himself into an entity that has more in common with a bowl of handsy noodles than a human being, Roy should be able to enforce the move. </p>
<p>Ed, however, has discovered texture. </p>
<p>The wide-eyed wonder he’d targeted at the light pales in comparison to his awe at the smooth surface of the wall. Roy is forced to watch Ed’s mouth drop open and the full force of his focus hone in on a patch of cream plaster as he runs his fingers over it in tiny, rhythmic circles. He’s barely brushing the surface, like there’s some sort of static charge between it and his skin, and his tongue is poking out, pressed against his bottom lip. It’s infinitely worse than the hand on the thigh.</p>
<p>“Roy,” says Ed, and this time it’s Roy who feels very far away. “Have you felt this?” The sheer reverence in his voice is too much, and Roy wonders if he’s maybe getting a contact high, if maybe Ed’s releasing spores of whatever the fuck he’s synthesized like some kind of horrible blond mushroom. Bad as that would be, it would go a long way to explaining why Roy can now feel his pulse in his eyelids. </p>
<p>“Roy,” Ed repeats, whispering this time. “Have you <em> felt this? </em>Have you?”</p>
<p>Talking about whether or not he’s groped his own entryway is only going to encourage Ed. Ed does not need encouragement. Ed doesn’t stop caressing the wall. His breathing is too loud, shallow and heavy and - Roy is absolutely not going there. “Roy,” Ed says <em> again. </em> It’s possible that Ed’s used his name more in the fifteen minutes since he showed up than in all their previous years of acquaintance. “You have to touch the wall with me.”</p>
<p>There are a lot of things Roy knows that he would do for Edward Elric. There are also a lot of things Roy will not let himself think about that he would do to, for, or with Ed, and only Riza knows <em>that</em>. One thing he has never considered, nor vetoed himself from considering, is feeling up the walls of his own home like the saddest, highest pervert in the world. He opts for evasive action. “Right,” Roy says. “Up. Let’s go.”</p>
<p>“I’m not leaving this wall,” Ed says matter of factly. His eyes have closed. “I’m not done looking at it.”</p>
<p>“Your eyes are closed,” Roy feels he has to point out. </p>
<p>“With my hand.”</p>
<p>For fuck’s sake. “Look, there’s more wall over there,” Roy says halfheartedly, figuring he has to at least give the basics a shot before moving on to something more complicated and resource-intensive. Ed doesn’t respond. Roy takes his life and dignity in his hands. “Edward. Ed. Why don’t you show me <em> that </em>wall?”</p>
<p>“Oh!” Ed shoots Roy a flare of a smile and instantly heads across the room for the other, identical wall. “Wow!” he says, while Roy’s still recovering from the flash burn to his retinas. Halfway there, he notices the paisley pattern on the couch, says “wow!” again, and sits down.</p>
<p>It is literally the first time that any plan involving Ed has worked as intended. Roy strongly suspects that it will also be the only time. He kind of wishes he hadn’t wasted it on something so trivial, but also, he’s extremely relieved that Ed is sitting on proper furniture and not in his hall anymore.</p>
<p>‘Sitting’ might be an overstatement. Ed is doing something more akin to leaning, neither upright nor horizontal. Roy’s best estimates place him at approximately a thirty degree angle. At the very least, he’s stationary and content to rub his face into the upholstery. Saliva can be steam-cleaned from the cushions. Probably. Roy’s giving optimism a rare try.</p>
<p>Of course, Ed has never done anything to make Roy’s life more convenient, so naturally he makes a concerted effort to stand up again. His legs seem to forget that they are in fact built out of top of the line muscle and biomechanical engineering, and really quite good at supporting his bodyweight. He takes an immediate header into the rug. </p>
<p>Roy lunges forward to catch Ed before he smashes face-first into the floor and breaks his nose. Blood is <em> much </em> harder to clean out than spit. Roy manages it, but also ends up banging his own knee painfully as he’s forced into an awkward half-kneel, one foot sliding under the couch and becoming trapped at an unpleasant angle. </p>
<p>“Whoa!” Ed says into Roy’s housecoat, now draped half on the couch and half on Roy’s shoulder. </p>
<p>“Ed,” Roy says severely. “Edward. Sit. <em> Stay seated.”  </em></p>
<p>“Hm,” Ed rebuts, and buries his face in Roy’s hair. </p>
<p>Roy has a horrible feeling he’s trying to taste it. “Absolutely not,” Roy says, trying and failing to jerk away from Ed's sudden iron grip on his shoulders. </p>
<p><em> “Roy,” </em> Ed whines, incredibly loudly and far too close to Roy’s ear. At least he’s not actually chewing on it. </p>
<p>“No, Edward.”</p>
<p>“<em>Roy</em>.”</p>
<p>“What.” </p>
<p>Ed doesn’t reply, but Roy feels some of the tension ease out of his body. Unfortunately, this means he’s now bearing down on Roy’s shoulders with full force. He’s illogically heavy. A very dense person. Roy’s knee screams at him from where it’s slowly being ground into the parquet. Whether it’s from the collision or the slow tragedy of ageing, he doesn’t want to know. </p>
<p>“Edward,” he tries. It’s surprisingly hard to speak under the weight. He’s going to have to tip Sven from the massage parlor a fortune for grinding out these new knots in his neck. “Ed.” </p>
<p>“Mm?”</p>
<p>“You’re crushing me.”</p>
<p>Ed breathes out, hot and damp against the side of Roy’s neck. It should be a wholly unpleasant experience. “Sorry,” he mumbles. His chest vibrates against Roy’s shoulder as he speaks. “Gonna... move.”</p>
<p>He sounds dangerously close to passing out, which would be a problem on two levels. First of all, he’d be unconscious, which is a bad thing to happen to people who are out of their skulls on any kind of substance. Secondly, he’d be unconscious on top of Roy. “Up.”</p>
<p>Ed does not <em> up </em> at all, just sighs contentedly into the join between Roy’s neck and shoulder. If he weren’t concerned about Ed blacking out and swallowing his tongue, and his knee wasn’t shrieking protests, there’d be a risk Roy could let himself appreciate this. </p>
<p>Thank god for small favors, he thinks darkly. He prises his leg free, already feeling the bruises throbbing under the surface; like a damn peach, every time. Ed stays draped over him, legs mostly on the sofa, torso tipping further over Roy’s shoulder in a fireman's carry as he gets to his knees. One of Ed’s hands makes a reflexive grab at the fabric over Roy’s hip, and Roy disguises his gasp with a cough and hastily tips Ed back onto the cushions. “There you go. Just - sit back and let me get you some water.”</p>
<p>Ed’s eyes are closed, and he makes a sleepy humming noise. Roy stays watching him for a minute. An amateur might have been relieved, but he knows a silent Ed is usually the most dangerous one. This doesn’t <em>look</em> like a trick to get Roy’s guard down, but then again, when not snarling, Ed’s face tends to look disturbingly angelic. False advertising. Roy doesn’t want to be his latest victim. </p>
<p>Apart from the frantic darting of his eyes behind his lids and the little circles he’s drawing again and again on his thighs with both index fingers, though, he looks still and relaxed, utterly absorbed by whatever inner chemical adventure he’s embarked on now. It’s <em> probably </em>safe to step away.</p>
<p>Roy backs slowly into the kitchen, not stopping until he loses sight of the living room. He exhales. The clock on the wall tells him that ten minutes ago he was still toiling through his book, blissfully oblivious to the unnatural disaster heading his way. An empty mug on the sideboard reminds him he’d been about to make tea. The kettle’s still warm. He puts it on to boil again, fills a large glass with water, and splashes his face before heading back out, this time having the foresight to leave his reading glasses on the counter before they get smacked off his face. </p>
<p>Ed is exactly where Roy left him, to the fraction of an inch. His eyes are glassy, and his face is so slack that the spidery tracing of his fingers is the only thing that stops Roy’s heart rate from spiking. It takes a moment to rouse Ed, and he doesn’t seem able to leave off drawing patterns on his thighs for long enough to take the glass from Roy, so in the end, Roy just tips the glass against Ed’s mouth so he can sip. Ed drinks readily enough, at least, and Roy doesn’t think about it, and doesn’t look down at Ed’s mouth, or his throat when he swallows.</p>
<p>  “Touch my neck again?” Ed says directly into the water glass, shattering all of Roy’s not thinking about it. </p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“My neck. You...” Ed repeats, then trails off as he puts his own hand to where Roy took his pulse and visibly gets distracted by his own skin contact. “Glowing,” Ed says nonsensically, and Roy’s just begun to hope that he’s distracted himself when Ed’s eyes focus directly on Roy again. A look of terrible eagerness lights his face. “Do it again?”</p>
<p>Roy opens his mouth and realises that the first word on his tongue isn’t an automatic <em>no</em>, which is. A problem. He takes the glass away, but that just makes it worse because now Ed’s just looking up at him, and the dazed edge to his smile doesn’t change the fact that Ed <em> is </em> smiling. His mouth is wet. Roy can’t even do anything about that, because he is <em> not </em>going to be wiping his former subordinate’s face with a hankie or in fact getting his hands anywhere near biting range, for more than one reason. The ghost of an image of his thumb against Ed’s shiny lower lip flits into his head. He slaps it away.</p>
<p>“Roy?” Ed says, like maybe Roy didn’t hear him the first time. “Touch me?” </p>
<p>It’s worse because Ed doesn’t ask Roy for things. He demands, threatens, negotiates and occasionally blackmails, but never asks. In more honest moments Roy can admit that this is the safest state of affairs, because an Ed who’s learned to say <em> please </em>would have to be handled via full-body welding gear and a long-distance cattle prod in Roy’s office. Absolutely nothing would get done. Roy would electrocute himself in minutes. </p>
<p>He’s been staring at Ed’s mouth in silence for too long. “Why don’t we do something else,” Roy says in desperate self-preservation. </p>
<p>Ed gets a ghost of his <em> do I have to do everything myself </em>look and smushes his face into Roy’s stomach, his arms coming around his upper thighs. Roy does the only thing he can in this scenario, which is sit down abruptly beside Ed so that his cheek is closer to Roy’s clavicle than his crotch. It forces Ed to let go, and Roy tries to shift him off from there, but it only makes Ed give a frustrated noise and curl into Roy’s side. It’s terrible. The nerves along Roy’s ribcage and hip disagree. He has no allies in this house. He has definitely been this outnumbered before, but his body turning against him, after he gave it a long bath and dressed it in crisp linen pajamas, is unprecedented treachery. </p>
<p>“Ed,” he tries again. “Why don’t we…” what the hell does he even do in this house that he can safely occupy Ed with, “play cards.” </p>
<p>Ed shakes his head without lifting it from Roy’s chest, then makes an appalling little happy sound. Roy finds himself wishing he believed in a higher power, and also hoping that Ed is too far gone to have noticed the skip in his breathing. Then Ed starts doing to Roy’s upper chest with his cheek what he was doing to the wall with his fingertips, and Roy stops hoping or wishing for anything except his dick to stay soft. </p>
<p>He casts around for distraction measures other than a pack of cards and comes up blank. The only things <em> he </em>does in this house for fun are read and wear the occasional exciting pair of socks, and he wouldn’t put money on Ed being able to focus his eyes right now. Surely there’s something. It’s - very hard to think. The top of Ed’s bun is tickling his chin. </p>
<p>Ed makes a sound, and then Roy feels him open his mouth against his shirt. Roy’s hand flies up and grabs Ed’s hair of its own accord, which is <em> terrible </em> and entirely necessary given he has no choice but to drag Ed off of his chest. Ed makes <em> another </em>noise, this one clearly involuntary and much, much worse. </p>
<p>Apparently, he has no objections whatsoever to having his hair pulled. This is knowledge Roy will now have for the rest of his ideally mercifully short life. His fingers flex instinctively, making Ed gasp in a way that <em> will </em> haunt Roy’s dreams, and he drops Ed’s head like a hot coal that’s about to bite.</p>
<p>Of course that just clunks Ed’s forehead back into Roy’s clavicle, because he is Sisyphus rolling Ed up the mountain and away from his dick. This time the noise Ed makes is unmistakably one of reproach, which Roy has to marvel at the audacity of given <em> he </em>isn’t the one being cruelly and unusually punished here. </p>
<p>Roy finds himself frozen with his hand somewhere above the nape of Ed’s neck as he nuzzles horribly at the underside of his collar. Ed seems to take the lack of response as encouragement, because he starts to bring his feet up onto the sofa cushion. He’s still wearing his <em> shoes.  </em></p>
<p>A different flavor of dismay takes over. It’s a testament to the level of havoc Ed’s managed to wreak tonight that Roy hadn’t previously noticed, especially considering that the shoes are double-laced biker boots with a two-inch sole. Roy has to assume Ed was wearing those when he started this little adventure into psychoactive interdimensionality, because there’s no way he currently has the fine motor control to fingerpaint, let alone lace those.</p>
<p>“Off,” says Roy, like he’s talking to a misbehaving dog. Ed swivels to look at him in confusion. Roy points at the offending boots with the arm that isn’t currently trapped under Ed’s entire bodyweight, and Ed blinks up at him, uncomprehending. “Boots off.”</p>
<p>Ed looks like he’s giving this serious consideration, then shakes his head and says, “Can’t.”</p>
<p>Roy weighs up his options with care. Ed keeping his boots on is out of the question, but the remaining alternatives are praying for Ed to regain manual dexterity, or taking them off himself. Roy really doesn’t want to take Ed’s boots off for him, for reasons that are about three-fifths his own dignity, one-fifth his distaste for touching anybody else’s feet for anything less than life or death, and the leftovers split unequally between the tattered shreds of Ed’s self-respect and his feelings about getting down on his knees in front of Ed. Which this would probably require. </p>
<p>“At the very least, take them off the -” He doesn’t get the rest of the sentence out. Ed reaches down and tugs at a concealed zip. It’s a minor miracle. Then he pulls it back up again, a look of intense focus on his face. Then down again, painfully slow. Roy seizes his chance and toes the boot off with his own house slipper. Ed stares at him open-mouthed. “Now the other one,” Roy orders. </p>
<p>Miraculously, Ed obeys. Roy resists the urge to line them up neatly by the door, which immediately turns out to have been an error, because Ed pulls his feet up onto the sofa, then keels over and deposits his head on Roy’s thigh. Roy goes very still indeed. </p>
<p>The only small blessing here is that Ed is facing out into the room, oblivious to the fallout dangerously near the back of his head. The remains of his bun spread themselves across Roy’s lap as he shuffles around, making himself comfortable. He is not making Roy comfortable. The room is silent apart from Ed’s breathing, and the sound of another zip slowly dragging up and down.</p>
<p>“Edward,” says Roy with extreme trepidation. “What are you doing?”</p>
<p>“Mm.” It’s not a reassuring reply. There’s no obvious follow-up question either. Roy commits to waiting it out. Based on Ed’s performance so far, he’ll either attempt to clarify or change tack soon enough. The crawling sound of metal teeth splitting apart and coming back together continues. Roy can feel it on his skin. Ed exhales until he’s practically gelatinous, then in one of his most alarming moves yet lifts his hand to the back of his own head.</p>
<p>“Can hear it,” he says, apparently unaware of the devastation he’s inflicting, “right here.” He rolls over, and Roy slams his eyes shut as if that could achieve anything. Ed giggles, and keeps dragging the zipper of his sweatshirt up and down like he <em> knows </em>he might as well be playing directly on Roy’s nerves.</p>
<p>“Stop.” It’s involuntary, and so is the movement of his hand to grab at Ed’s. Ed makes a shocked sound, and Roy opens his eyes.</p>
<p>Ed’s left tipped back in Roy’s lap, looking up at him with pupils like saucers and his lips parted, staring directly up at Roy. Ed’s bun is unraveling, hair spilling down Roy’s thigh. His sweater is half-open, there’s not a stitch underneath, and Roy’s seen Ed without a shirt more than once but that had been under <em> rather different circumstances. </em></p>
<p>Ed makes a puzzled sound and Roy almost wraps his other hand over Ed’s mouth, if only to stop himself from pushing his fingers in there. He wants to blame this on his dry spell, but frankly this would probably still be exactly as bad as it is even if he’d had sex twelve times yesterday. He needs to go set himself on fire. </p>
<p>“What are you working on,” he spits out, in a tactical redirect away from saying anything like <em> does that feel good. </em>“Your - projects. How are your. Things.” </p>
<p>“Mm?” Ed says. </p>
<p>“Your work,” Roy says, clutching at topics like life rafts. “Your - things. Alchemy.” </p>
<p>The second the word leaves his mouth he knows he’s made a fatal error. Ed’s head does rise from Roy’s lap, but the look on his face is much, much too excited. It’s like a light’s snapped on behind his eyes, and Roy immediately thinks of those tall buildings on the coast of Creta that warn ships off the rocks. He forgets all about his dick in favor of breaking out into a cold sweat. </p>
<p>“<em>You</em> do alchemy,” Ed says delightedly. </p>
<p>“No I don’t,” Roy says, out of sheer self defense. </p>
<p>“You do,” Ed insists bemusedly, still pressed up much too close. “Like me!” </p>
<p>“No. Not like you,” Roy says, which makes Ed’s brow start to wrinkle into the starting position of <em> I’m about to solve this problem whether you like it or not. </em> “I mean yes,” Roy amends hurriedly. “We - are alchemists.” The elapsed time between Ed having a thought about alchemy and Ed trying to <em> do </em> alchemy is usually two to five seconds, and the thought of Ed trying to do alchemy <em> now </em>is doing more damage than Sven will be able to handle. “We also do other things. Let’s think about -”</p>
<p>“I had an idea,” Ed announces, sitting bolt upright and totally ignoring Roy and his impending infarction. “Earlier. It is,” he continues, “a <em>great </em>idea. Wow. I’m<em> so</em> glad I didn’t forget the idea?” </p>
<p>“Ed,” Roy says sharply, because there’s a hideous mismatch between Ed’s dreamy tone and the body language: full-on meerkat and clearly very ready to execute on whatever the hell this is. “What’s the idea?” </p>
<p>“Mmmmm,” Ed says, which is <em> not an answer.  </em></p>
<p>“Ed. Edward. You need to tell me the idea,” Roy says, rapidly shifting registers into his command voice <em> again </em>. He deserves overtime. “Talk to me. Tell me what you’re thinking.” </p>
<p><em> “Yes,” </em> Ed says rapturously. “I thought! I thought. I <em> gotta </em> tell Roy. <em> This.”  </em></p>
<p>“What’s this, Ed,” Roy pleads. “What is this.” </p>
<p>The only thing that gets him is giggling, which then abruptly cuts off as Ed seems to catch sight of Roy’s face. His eyes go even rounder. “What is <em> that?”  </em></p>
<p>Gods, what <em> now. </em>“What?” </p>
<p>“That,” Ed says unhelpfully, and one of his hands is suddenly approaching Roy’s face; Roy has to bat it away. <em> “Whoa. </em> That is. The <em> ugliest </em>thing I have ever…” </p>
<p>He trails off, still staring. “My <em> face?” </em>Roy demands. </p>
<p>Ed wrinkles his nose. “Your <em> mustache.”  </em></p>
<p>Now Roy stares. “What.” </p>
<p>“You should shave,” Ed says seriously. </p>
<p>“I <em> do </em>shave,” Roy says, resisting the urge to pat his own upper lip just in case. “What the hell are you - you’re hallucinating,” he realizes. For god’s sake. “Wonderful.” </p>
<p>“No. It sucks,” Ed points out, a hand once again meandering through the air towards Roy’s mouth. “Shave it.” </p>
<p>“Sure,” Roy says grimly, catching Ed’s hand and pressing it back down. If Ed touches his mouth that’s going to generate a whole new set of problems, and Roy has enough on his plate already. Ed might only be seeing mustaches <em>now, </em>but who the hell knows what he’ll hallucinate in five minutes’ time. </p>
<p>Roy <em> really </em> can’t afford to leave him alone. If a little mild groping and insults to an imaginary mustache he’s only been <em> thinking </em>of growing are what it takes to keep Ed and the city at large safe, that’s a price Roy can stand to pay.  </p>
<p>“Shave,” Ed repeats, then looks down at his hands, then back at Roy’s face. “Hm.” </p>
<p>“What now,” Roy says. </p>
<p>“Hm,” Ed repeats, brows coming together as he returns his stare down to his hands, which are sort of - intermittently twitching.</p>
<p>“What are you doing,” Roy says warily, because it looks like Ed’s trying to do <em> something. </em></p>
<p>“Alchemy,” Ed says.</p>
<p>“No,” Roy says reflexively. </p>
<p>“My hands won't do the thing,” Ed says petulantly.</p>
<p>Oh, thinks a lone little sane voice in the back of Roy’s mind. This is an <em> emergency </em> emergency. The inside of his head goes flat and calm. “Edward. Are you trying to clap right now?”</p>
<p>“Yes and my hands won't do the thing,” Ed repeats. He twitches again, this time more vigorously, and Roy lunges to pin his wrists to the couch on either side of him before he finishes the sentence.</p>
<p>Bad move. Ed has terrifying gymnast arms, and Roy really has to grip to fully get his hands around Ed’s wrists, let alone keep them in place. Ed giggles madly, pulls his knees up and attempts to playfully wrestle Roy, which results in what’s almost certainly some kind of spinal fracture and leaves Roy wheezing into the upholstery. He finally manages to get a hold on Ed’s wrists, which feels like victory for less than half a second before Ed shivers and says “oh, <em>yes.</em>"</p>
<p>Roy jerks bodily away from the moral hazard. Ed immediately tries to clap again. Roy is forced to retake his wrists along with his ethical dilemma.</p>
<p>“Roy,” Ed complains, then rediscovers Roy’s grip on his arms and starts giggling and pulling again. </p>
<p>“Stay <em> still,” </em> Roy grunts. He’s not on the floor with a dislocated elbow, mostly because Ed is currently not very clear on how his arms are supposed to function, but that’s not a lot of leeway. On the one hand, for as long as Ed thinks they’re playing the best game ever, he’s not trying to alchemize Roy’s couch into its component atoms. On the other hand, this is <em> not </em>a sustainable situation. Ed currently seems to have forgotten he’s built like a Drachman infantry tank, but Roy’s not going to count on that lasting. </p>
<p>He thinks longingly of handcuffs as Ed twists happily in his grip, making the scars pull on Roy’s palms and the tendons ache. There <em> is </em>a pair upstairs; they were a collective gift from his sisters, meant as a biting commentary on the lack of separation between Amestris’ military and police powers, and also on the complete lack of sex that Roy is able to have now that he’s in charge of both. They’re pretty high-grade, and Roy’s pretty sure Ed won’t be able to get out of them unless he really means it, in which case a god himself provably could not stop him.</p>
<p>He tries shoving one of Ed’s hands under his own thigh, pinning it to the couch, and when that seems to work he tries the other one. That’s by no means a permanent solution - Ed’s left is already wiggling outward as he pins the right - but it’s at least something. </p>
<p>Ed stills abruptly, interrupting Roy’s internal argument about how he <em> can’t </em> handcuff Ed to his couch, not least because it would probably mean he won’t <em> have </em>a couch by the end of the night. “What happened to my hands,” Ed says.</p>
<p>“What?” Roy asks, though more fool he if he hasn’t realized yet that asking Ed questions will only lead to further regrets.</p>
<p>“My <em>hands</em>,” Ed says again, staring a full half meter to the left of Roy’s face, “are <em> gone.”</em></p>
<p>“No, they’re not,” Roy says, though the way this night has gone so far makes him glance down again to check. </p>
<p>“They’re gone,” Ed insists. “You - ” He blinks, voice dropping off. He’s still pink in the face and big-eyed as ever, but the slackness in his mouth is different this time and his stare does not seem like that of a man who’s enjoying the rollercoaster anymore. “You took both of them?”</p>
<p>It occurs to Roy that Ed did, in fact, lose a hand once, and that this was in fact quite traumatic probably, and if this here and now becomes a bad trip then Roy is probably going to end up thrown headfirst through a wall at some point. Or wept on. He’s genuinely not sure which he wants to happen less. </p>
<p>“I didn’t take either of your hands, Ed,” Roy says, trying to locate a happy medium between his command voice and his ‘visiting the orphanage in front of the press’ voice. It ends up coming out sort of defensive and melancholy. </p>
<p>“Oh,” Ed says, sounding genuinely relieved. Then his eyes narrow.  “Who stole them?”</p>
<p>If the look on Ed’s face right now is what the thing at the Gate saw when he met it for the second time, Roy is honestly surprised it didn’t just curl up and die. Roy carefully frees a hand - Ed doesn’t move - and grips Ed’s chin to aim his face down at his leg. Gingerly. Ed might remember he has teeth. “Your hand’s right here,” he says.</p>
<p>They both stare at Ed wiggling his fingers.</p>
<p>“That’s not mine,” Ed says.</p>
<p>“Well, it’s not mine either,” Roy says. </p>
<p>Ed scowls and jerks his leg, freeing his arm and nearly kneeing Roy in the stomach. “Who the fuck are you,” he snaps at his still-present hand. </p>
<p>Roy takes a risk and grabs the palm Ed’s in denial about, if only to prevent further thrashing. “You,” he tries, waggling their joined hands slightly. “See?” </p>
<p>Ed goes completely still the second Roy touches his hand. “Holy fuck,” he whispers, eyes blown wide open. “How’d you do that?”</p>
<p>“Do what?” </p>
<p>“You got my hand back,” Ed whispers worshipfully. </p>
<p>“I…” Roy decides now is not the time to refuse accolades, especially not if they buy him some goodwill in the mad little firework factory currently operating as Ed’s brain. “Yes. Yes I did.”</p>
<p>“You made it <em>better.</em> I can <em>see...</em> <em>molecules</em>. You made my hand go all -” Ed makes a wondering noise that Roy really wishes he wouldn’t make, because it’s both obscene and at volume. <em>“Touch,” </em>Ed finishes, wiggling against Roy’s legs.</p>
<p>Roy automatically squeezes Ed’s hand, then hurriedly lets go. “Ed. No.”</p>
<p>“Roy,” Ed says earnestly, giving no indication of having heard him. “Roy. Touch my face.”</p>
<p>Not this again. Roy doesn’t know if it’s worse or better that Ed’s moved on from <em> neck. </em> Can he talk Ed out of this? Distract him? So far the only thing that’s distracted Ed from touching is alchemy, but the only thing distracting him from alchemy is touching. Can Roy convince him to touch something <em> else? </em>“Look,” he tries. “The wall’s right there. Remember? Go touch that.”</p>
<p>“No,” Ed says with surprising mulishness. His eyes focus on Roy, then narrow dangerously. “You. Touch <em> me.”  </em></p>
<p>“I already touched you,” Roy says, because he has to believe he can lawyer his way out of this. </p>
<p>“Touch me more,” Ed insists. His eyes narrow further, and despite the blown pupils he looks much more familiar now, sharp-faced and intent. “I want it.” </p>
<p>That’s nearly enough to send Roy directly into <em>alchemy is okay, actually, experiment on my home as you like. </em>Only the thought of his security deposit stops him; anyone willing to rent to an alchemist charges through the nose as it is. </p>
<p>He considers the odds of Ed trying to transmute something at least once tonight. He considers the odds of his house being brought down in a shower of bricks, pipes and tasteful interior decorating. </p>
<p>If he thinks about it objectively, it’s not that much. Nothing bad. Ed wants him to… take his pulse again. It doesn’t have to be more than that. 

Under the internal pretense of health and safety, Roy touches Ed’s neck. </p>
<p>Ed makes a noise like Roy is doing a lot more than just resting two fingers against his carotid, because he is a demon put on this earth to make Roy suffer. His eyes are big and bright again and he’s smiling, lazy and happy and definitely smug about getting what he wanted. Roy wants to push him facedown into the couch cushions. Roy wants to wind what’s left of that bun in his fist and leave him hoarse for days. Teach him not to open his mouth. Teach him not to tease. Teach him to like it. </p>
<p>Ed already likes it. That’s arguably the problem. </p>
<p>Roy tries to focus on counting Ed’s pulse, even though he’s not looking at any clock and not doing it right anyway. He’s too aware of his own breathing, too deep now, too rough; Ed’s mouth is open, his eyes half-closed and focused on Roy’s face. He leans a little further into Roy’s hand, increasing the pressure. Roy’s thumb bumps against the underside of Ed’s jaw. He tries to think about something other than the open tilt of Ed’s throat, Ed’s hair tickling his wrist, Ed’s breath ghosting over his skin. </p>
<p>Ed, still making eye contact, slowly and deliberately puts his tongue out. </p>
<p>Roy very nearly turns his pulse-check into a pulse-choke. Ed responds with another fit of laughter, because he can see when he’s getting to Roy and one thing he hasn’t grown out of is mashing Roy’s buttons for fun and profit. And he’s doing it on purpose.</p>
<p>He’s doing it on purpose. </p>
<p>Roy isn’t blind - anymore - and one of the keys to his survival thus far has been his ability to recognize when someone is attracted to him. He knows when someone is exploitable. He <em> knows </em> when someone is checking him out. And Ed, ever since he returned from Resembool with a surprisingly burly Alphonse and a demand to be put on contractor payroll, has not been subtle. </p>
<p>But looking is just looking. Roy has seen Ed look at waiters, librarians, corporals and sergeants and a couple of lieutenant colonels. He has watched Ed cultivate a reasonably harmless if not quite respectable sex life, needing no intervention beyond occasionally reviving a despairingly envious Havoc, and he has watched Ed watch him and do nothing. Attraction is only attraction. Given their positions, their relationship, their history, Roy is not going to be the one to make a move. </p>
<p>And Ed might not usually be so giggly in pursuit of his goals, but the shamelessness, determination and direct approach are all very much here in Roy’s living room. He’s slid down on the couch again, legs sprawled out this time but torso once again tipped towards Roy, head creeping back towards where he wants it, and he knows exactly what he’s doing. </p>
<p><em> This </em>has nothing to do with the drugs - the approach, at least. If Ed were stone cold sober and decided to do more than just look, he would still be groping for Roy’s levers with the express purpose of smashing them with a fairground mallet. He just wouldn’t have spent the preceding thirty minutes marveling at wallpaper and smiling at Roy. </p>
<p>Roy takes his hand off Ed’s neck, ignoring the consequent noise that somehow combines the worst of petulant and bereft. He’s never had much cause to develop the ability to reverse-engineer someone’s intoxication with any more precision than drink, drugs, sex or power. Given that it’s suddenly a pressing issue, he has to cobble together a guess from others’ Academy and boot camp exploits and stories from his sisters. The obvious stimulant effects and erratic behavior suggests Ed used an existing amphetamine as a blueprint, but it’s evidently something that skews heavily towards inducing euphoria; Ed could have done that himself, but he’s not a natural pharmacist. It seems most likely whatever work he did would have been to eliminate the side effects rather than intensify the intended high.</p>
<p> What any of that means for his present cognitive function is well beyond Roy’s realm of experience, but it’s pretty clearly crashed his inhibitions. Whatever reasons Ed had for not acting on his attraction have either been forgotten or made not to matter anymore. All that’s left is an Ed in Roy’s house who thinks touching is a <em> great </em>idea. </p>
<p>When Roy had gotten serious, though, in the entryway, Ed had pulled it together enough to accurately communicate what was going on.</p>
<p>Of course, he’s gotten significantly loopier since then, and Roy has no idea when Ed took his dose or how long it’s intended to last. He snaps his fingers in Ed’s face. </p>
<p>It’s not a flinch, but Ed does move away from it, blinking slowly and staring at Roy’s hand with more puzzlement than accusation. “No gloves,” he points out. </p>
<p>Not quite what Roy had been going for, but decent evidence of cognition, risk assessment and understanding of cause and effect anyway. Good enough. “Edward,” Roy repeats. “We need to talk about this.” </p>
<p>“What?” Ed says, head lolling. </p>
<p>Roy either needs to say no and make it stick or call Alphonse and remove himself from the situation. He would prefer not to call Alphonse. Ed specifically asked him not to. “The fact that you’re trying to get me to touch you.”</p>
<p>“And?”</p>
<p>“Ed,” Roy says, deciding to use small words here, “do you realize you are hitting on me right now.”</p>
<p>“Yep,” Ed says happily. </p>
<p>
  <em> “Yep?”  </em>
</p>
<p>“Yup. It’s awesome! You're making all the faces I thought you would.”</p>
<p>“... You’ve thought about this,” Roy says after a long silence, groping for the biggest spar of mental debris from <em> that </em>payload delivery. “You’ve thought about this?” Because that’s a little more than attraction, that’s - “You couldn’t have fucking done this sober?”</p>
<p>“Dunno,” Ed says, back to touching his own face, one hand creeping up his temple into his own hair. “There was never a good time?”</p>
<p>“You were looking for <em>a</em> <em>good time?” </em>Roy says incredulously. </p>
<p>Ed snickers like Roy told a joke. “Right?” he says nonsensically. “But we have time now.” He smiles at Roy, too sweet for how his eyes are lidding. His hand slowly fists in his own bangs. “You wanna?”</p>
<p>Roy wants to cup his hands around his mouth and shout <em> YOU ARE WAY TOO FUCKING HIGH FOR THIS </em> directly into Ed’s adorable little ear. More than that, just because he’s seen Ed looking doesn’t mean he’s prepared for how to fit the necessary adult conversation about needs and boundaries into a shape Ed will understand. And they <em> need </em>to have that talk, because if they go down this road, there’s no way in hell this will be a one-off thing. Roy knows himself, and when he gets something he wants he rides it until the wheels fall off. </p>
<p>And talking through <em> that, here, now, </em>with Ed tasting colors and potentially incapable of remembering all of this the next morning anyway, is just not fucking happening. </p>
<p>“It’ll be good,” Ed says, like Roy needs <em> convincing. </em> “It’s okay. <em> Great </em>idea. You’re all, you. This won’t be like with Brad.” </p>
<p>Roy stills. “What happened with Brad.”</p>
<p>Ed makes a <em> pff </em> sound like it’s not worth discussing. “He got high, just a brownie though. I wasn’t, ‘cuz I’m usually not, and it was - fine? I dunno. Boring I guess. Maybe not for him. I’m usually kinda bored during sex,” he adds, sounding vaguely disappointed in a clinical kind of way. “Unless something fun is happening. Dunno, wasn’t like that with Win. Though maybe that’s ‘cuz I really love her.” He frowns slightly. “That’s unfair to other people. To Brad, I guess. He’s a good person.” </p>
<p>Roy doesn’t know if he needs to never hear about Brad again or hear exactly enough to become Brad’s worst nightmare. Neither are rational urges. Brad is a good person. </p>
<p>“Good dick,” Ed adds thoughtfully, which slams Roy right back out of any semblance of charity. “Generous side of average, and just. Pretty, you know?”</p>
<p>“I really don’t think,” Roy says carefully, crushing down every other thing he wants to say with his metaphorical bare hands, “that he would appreciate you describing it to other people.” </p>
<p>“You don’t care about if he cares,” Ed says casually. “Doubt Brad cares either. I think.” He frowns slightly. “Wanted to fuck in the park a lot. Like on a bench. Gross.”</p>
<p>The list of things Ed cannot be permitted talk about right now is getting longer by the second, but his sex life, with or without Roy, is pretty close to the top. Roy’s hand clenches involuntarily against the couch back as he fends off a spectacularly unhelpful train of thought about how best to stop Ed talking.</p>
<p>Ed’s eyes snap up to Roy’s hand like a dog going on point. “You could always shut me up,” he says easily, like he’s read Roy’s fucking mind - and then he opens his fucking mouth, showy, <em>demonstrative</em>, like Roy somehow <em> didn’t </em> get the implication. </p>
<p>For a second Roy gets the crystal clear visual of Ed - <em> this </em>Ed, loose limbed, smiley, so, so ready to stick his tongue out - whining throat-deep on his cock. He’d enjoy it. Roy would make it good for him. Ed already likes having his hair pulled - </p>
<p>Roy may not be a good man, but a lack of control is not one of his failings. “Edward,” he says, sounding only a little bit close to murder. “Some advice for you. Free of charge. Do not make an offer like that unless you mean it.” </p>
<p>Ed laughs like Roy isn’t deadly fucking serious. “What if you just slapped me?” he says.</p>
<p>Roy feels some pretty critical brain functions die violent and messy deaths. “I bet that would feel really cool,” Ed continues. “Like. On the face. Or wherever, honestly?”</p>
<p>“You like that?” Roy’s mouth says, entirely independent of Roy’s brain.</p>
<p>“Eh. Brad spanked me once and it was, mm. Hm. It was fine? But he's just, y’know.” Ed waves a vague hand like this is all self-explanatory. "It's really not the same if you have to ask. And then explain. Also he’s got no clue how to hit.” He snorts. “He’s such a virgin.” </p>
<p>Brad Giffords, thirty-one, Technical Sergeant in the Signal Corps with a minor criminal record for youthful bar brawling and six foot five two hundred pounds, is not what Roy would describe as <em> a virgin. </em>Roy is generally of the opinion that all intel is good intel, but Brad’s approach to corporal punishment in bed is something he could and probably should have died without knowing. Roy can never let himself be put in a position where he would be Brad’s CO. No matter how many steps removed. Maybe Brad should get transferred to Briggs. </p>
<p>“He got high for that too,” Ed continues, back to staring past Roy and unaware of Brad’s career trajectory being decided beside him. “Ate one brownie, ploughed through… like… <em> so </em>much food, and then like… barely even hit me at all. And he kept stopping. And asking me about it. Like. What am I supposed to say. And he didn’t even share the pickled herring,” Ed adds resentfully. “That’s why I thought. Okay. Uppers and like… sensory shit, straight shot stimulants, not really variable stuff like THC. Body chem.” </p>
<p>He gets distracted there again, one hand scrunching erratically in his bangs while his eyes track across the ceiling. “It was a <em> really </em> mediocre spanking.” He sighs despondently. “I dunno. He’s not mean.” </p>
<p>He sounds disappointed, and Roy doesn’t really know how to take that, but then Ed continues, “His heart just wasn’t in it. He was. Trying? I’d probably have got better smacks from a nun. And he had no idea what to do with his like. Other hand. Like he was hitting <em> hard </em> I guess but it wasn’t, mm - he didn’t <em> want </em>anything from me. Not like that. He’s really not mean.”</p>
<p>If he has to keep listening to Ed describe a lacklustre spanking from Brad with accompanying psychological analysis, Roy realizes, he’s going to die. Someone will, at any rate. “Why don’t we talk about something else.”</p>
<p>“Hm?” Ed says, then focuses back on Roy’s face. He smiles a slow, indulgent smile. “Don’t worry. You’re mean as shit.”</p>
<p>There’s only one way to take <em> that, </em>and the fact that Roy can’t under these circumstances should be outlawable torture. “I’m getting Brad transferred to Briggs,” Roy’s mouth says, once again totally out of order.</p>
<p>“No you’re not,” Ed says comfortably. “You’re not <em> that </em>mean.” </p>
<p>“Don’t be so sure.” Going by the luxuriously hot core of spite in Roy’s chest, it’s not only Ed uncovering new facets of himself tonight. The jealousy is not in itself a surprise, but he hadn’t realized to which degree he considered Ed <em> his </em>in a myriad of less than professional ways. </p>
<p>Ed snickers and dissolves further into the couch, oh so coincidentally landing his head right by Roy’s hip. “You’re so fuckin’ nuts.”</p>
<p>“An hour ago I'd have disagreed with that assessment,” Roy says through his teeth. It would be so easy to just put his hand down on Ed’s head. He needs to get a grip. <em> Not </em>on Ed. </p>
<p>Ed squints a little. “Did you have glasses on earlier?” </p>
<p>Roy considers lying, but no sign of Ed regaining his grasp on reality should be discouraged. “Yes.”</p>
<p>“What happened to the mustache?”</p>
<p>“There was no mustache.” And now there never will be. Given Ed’s reaction, that might be for the best, but it still feels like a small loss. </p>
<p>“But you had glasses,” Ed says in a clinching-the-argument sort of tone. </p>
<p>This is pretty much going to be the rest of his night, Roy realizes. Unless he does call Alphonse. He can’t send Ed home alone, and it occurs that Alphonse must not be at the Elric apartment either, given that Ed clearly did this without him. Even if he does call Alphonse he may not be able to come get his brother. And Roy does, actually, need to sleep at some point, and that point is approaching sooner than he wants to admit. </p>
<p>Roy comes to a decision. “We’re going to make a deal.” </p>
<p>“We are?” Ed says amusedly. </p>
<p>“We are. If you behave, and try your best to go to sleep, you get to stay the night here.”</p>
<p>“Behave,” Ed laughs, wiggling up to stick his head back in Roy’s lap. </p>
<p>Roy tolerates it in the spirit of goodwill negotiation and also by digging his fingers into the couch back again. “If you behave,” he continues steadily, “we can continue this conversation tomorrow.”</p>
<p>Ed grins up at him. “Which conversation?” The gold-to-black ratio of his eyes is looking slightly more human. “The one about Brad or the one about your glasses?” Roy sighs deeply. “I like the glasses. They make your face look less wide, and you’ve got great cheekbones. I never noticed them before.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for that assessment, Edward.” It’s much easier to cut him down than to accept whatever sideways compliment that was. Better for keeping the discussion in at least the same neighborhood as the point, too. “Not the conversation about my glasses.”</p>
<p>“So the one about how you’re mean and I want you to fuck me, then.”</p>
<p>He says it completely straight, but from the way he’s lying Roy can feel the slow shiver that goes down his spine, a flex of his upper back muscles that slackens his mouth and arches him off Roy’s thigh in one slow ripple. It goes all the way down to his hips. It looks involuntary. It looks like the thought of it is suddenly more than he can handle. </p>
<p>Good. Considering that Roy feels as though he just took a fist to the jaw, it’s only right. </p>
<p>If Roy’s going to fuck Ed - at this point it’s increasingly evident the question is not if but when - he’s not going to be goaded into it by a saucer-eyed wretch lounging in his lap with his tits out. Ed wants it - fine. Roy wants it too. Given Ed forfeited executive power by dosing himself out of his skull and tipping himself tongue out into Roy’s utterly blameless evening, Ed’s going to have it Roy’s way or not at all. </p>
<p>Roy may have to breathe deep for a couple counts, but he gets a grip. He can do this right. He can think beyond the immediate throb of his dick. Whoever said you can’t have it all wasn’t operating in Roy’s weight class. If he does this right - if he does this <em> correctly - </em>he can have Ed any way he wants. And if he decides he wants this specifically - well. Given tonight’s ample evidence, it probably won’t be very hard to talk Ed into trying this again, planned out and agreed to sober beforehand. </p>
<p>Roy takes one more deep breath. “I’m not having sex with you tonight, Edward.” He doesn’t look down at Ed, because that won’t help, but he does narrow his eyes at Ed’s discarded boots on his living room rug. “But if you’re good, tomorrow may be a different story.” </p>
<p>That pops Ed up like a jack-in-the-box, letting out a terrible witchy cackle and very nearly cracking Roy’s hard-won zen. “If I’m <em> good?”  </em></p>
<p>Bad choice of words. “If you do as you’re told,” Roy amends. Oh, no, worse. “Go to bed. Keep your hands to yourself. Sleep.” </p>
<p><em> “Your </em>bed?” Ed says interestedly.  </p>
<p>Roy resigns himself to his doom. “Yes,” he concedes. “My bed.” If it gets too bad he really will handcuff Ed to the headboard and let god take mercy on his soul.</p>
<p>“Or what?” Ed says curiously. </p>
<p>“Or what what?” </p>
<p>“What happens if I’m bad?” Ed says, bright-eyed in a way that indicates he not only has ideas but notarized plans as to how bad and in exactly which ways he’s going to be. </p>
<p>Roy inhales deep through his nose once agajn. “I alchemize you to the floor and read legal policy briefs at you until you black out. Your choice.”</p>
<p>Ed actually seems to consider this. Either he’s sobered up less than it seems, or he has hidden layers of depravity that will demand thorough excavation in due course. “We can fuck tomorrow if we don’t fuck now?”</p>
<p>Roy exhales. “More or less.”</p>
<p>“But it’d be good now,” Ed points out. </p>
<p>“Not for me,” Roy lies, though he must have injected enough automatic sincerity in his tone to sound convincingly upset that Ed’s face falls a little. Well, Roy <em> is </em>upset. It’s mostly upset of the dick, but he feels he can cut himself some allowances here. If getting Ed to agree takes some crocodile tears then Roy will go and get the eye drops.</p>
<p>“Okay,” Ed says, tone more subdued than Roy’s heard from him in several years. He’s not looking up at Roy anymore, just frowning very slightly out at the room in a way that somehow looks both detached and philosophical about being chastised. </p>
<p>Roy eyes the bent gold head suspiciously in case this is a trick to get him to fold, but Ed seems genuinely muted by the implication that he’s been imposing unwanted advances on Roy. The fact that Roy pretty much agreed to sex tomorrow doesn’t seem to have factored into it. </p>
<p>Roy chances laying a hand on Ed’s shoulder, if for no other reason than to make sure this high doesn’t take a downward turn, not when they’re so close to something like armistice. “I’m tired,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. We really should do this tomorrow. Alright?” He tries a very careful squeeze. Ed’s warm clear through the fabric. “Do we have a deal?” </p>
<p>Ed stares glassily up at him, so Roy repeats, “We go to bed, you try to sleep. Tomorrow we talk about this.” </p>
<p>Ed’s still not smiling, but he does seem to have gained a little more lucidity as tradeoff. After a moment he says, “Swear?” </p>
<p>“I swear,” Roy agrees. </p>
<p>Ed’s eyes narrow, and then he swings a hand out in what’s probably meant to be a demand for handshake but ends up nearly smacking Roy’s throat. Roy catches it and holds on, which brings Ed back to smiling again, smaller but also a little sillier than before. “A <em> deal,” </em> he says, probably trying to shake but mostly waggling Roy’s wrist side to side. “You big <em> diplomat. </em> I -” Here he laughs again. “I <em> totally </em>won this one. You - haha, oh, man. You know that right?” </p>
<p>“Edward,” Roy says gravely, deciding now is the time to use his grip to guide Ed off his lap and up to stand. “The best deals are ones where everybody wins.” </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Roy: and tomorrow, i’m getting one FUCK of a blowjob, so help me god</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>me and grace are to blame for this one. You’re welcome.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ed wakes up, and immediately wishes he hadn’t. There’s a gimletting sort of feeling behind his right eyebrow and his mouth feels like he’s been sucking on sand. It’s also mashed against something warm and angular. He blinks, which is another mistake. That’s a shoulder blade. Some<em> one, </em>then. </p><p>Closing his eyes again makes everything much better. Cocooned in the dark, all he’s getting from the body he’s plastered against - he knows exactly who it is, but he’s not going to think about that yet - is heat radiating up into his muscles. Which fucking <em> ache </em>, in that bone-deep satisfied way he usually only gets from a five-day practical research bender. </p><p>But hey, it looks like he managed to cook up the good shit. Ed might be a goddamn prodigy, but running DIY pilot tests on himself is still a crapshoot every time.</p><p>The headache is worse than he’d hoped for. He’d purified the shit out of everything so it must be mostly dehydration, but the spike through his forehead is definitely chemical. He spins over the recipe, trying to see if he can pick out the overkill from the hypotheticals. Neuropharmacology is not his natural strength; too reliant on fine margins and exact balances, plus biochem has too many variables, even within his own body. He’s not sure whether he’s planning to try this kind of high again, but even so he finds he’s making adaptations to the process in his head. His body’s giving him a lot of feedback that suggests it’s longer-lasting than he’d anticipated; it’s not the runaway train of sensation that’d kidnapped him last night, but his skin doesn’t feel quite like skin. Or maybe it does feel like skin, but <em> more </em>. Nobody should be that aware of their own fingerprints. Also, he definitely went too hard on the pure amphetamine. The headache and the shivery feeling in his back teeth speak to that.</p><p>If the memories filtering back in are any guide - clear as a bell but glowing at the edges - he was way off the mark about the entactogenic effects too. Since he’s currently doing his best wallpaper paste impression on Roy’s back he can’t bring himself to feel too bad about it, but he definitely wasn’t <em> planning </em> to drop by for a social call and demand to get dicked down. Fucking agonists again. They’re a recurring problem in Ed’s attempts to run clinical trials on himself: something about who he is as a person means he skews towards overstimulation. He’s had a better time figuring out correct doses for blockers - easier to start off low and dial it up from there. His synapses are little <em> bitches.  </em></p><p>“Edward,” says Roy below him. “Would you please stop drawing on my back.” </p><p>Ed freezes, which feels like a paradox because he had no sense he was moving at all. Keeping his hands still turns out to be a huge fucking challenge; Roy’s pajama shirt has a coarse grain to the fabric that feels incredible and Ed might be bone-tired but his head is going a mile a minute and it needs a fucking outlet. Being barred from doodling arrays into Roy’s feeble excuse for a trapezius feels like a special kind of torture. </p><p>Speaking of special kinds of torture. All signs point to almost a decade’s deranged fantasies having come to mildly hallucinatory life last night, and there’s no way he’s dropping that ball in the unforgivingly bright light of the morning after. Does it even count as the morning after if all he did was rub his face against Roy and suggest a little rough sex? </p><p><em>Roy’s</em> face when Ed asked to be slapped crashes into his head and straight down his spine. <em> Fuck </em>yeah, Roy was into it, and Ed’s going to make him follow through. Maybe not in the next few hours, seeing as his head feels like it’s stuffed with wasps and ammonia, but soon. Ed reckons he’s got a pretty good idea of just how mean Roy can get, and he’s going to do his level best to find out if he”s right. If his reactions last night were anything to go by, it won’t be much of a challenge to get him riled up.</p><p>Roy shifts, and Ed realises his brain is maybe not quite back to sea level yet either because he’s lying on top of Roy, well on his way to half-mast and not feeling at all weird about it. Then again, he did super fucking proposition the guy last night. Kinda hard to feel weird about a little chubbed-up spooning when you’ve already laid down the welcome mat for a hearty facefucking between colleagues. Unless he hallucinated that? </p><p>“Definitely still high,” he says aloud, then coughs into Roy’s shoulder blade. He sounds like he <em> did </em>get his face fucked last night, but instead of dick it was a pack of cigarettes. </p><p>“Wonderful,” Roy says, sounding not happy about this at all. </p><p>“Not like that.” Insofar as anything could be time-sensitive right now, it’s a matter of extreme urgency that Roy understands. Ed’s fine, just -- wait, has Roy ever even done drugs? </p><p>“Roy,” Ed says, sounding weirdly accusing even to himself. “Have you <em> never </em> been high?” </p><p>Roy mutters something that might be <em>good god</em> and starts moving out from under Ed, which given the circumstances works about as well as a turtle trying to abandon its shell. Ed kinda grabs on automatically, but Roy just methodically pries his hands off and rolls him away across the bed. The jostle of the mattress makes everything go very - immediate; Ed has to lift a hand to cover his right eye, because the railroad spike jammed in there behind the socket is starting to get real fucking insistent. “Do you have water?” </p><p>Roy sighs hugely and leaves the bed, then the room. Ed experiments with squinting one eye open at a time, then both, then figures he should probably go get his own water if Roy’s done putting up with him. And painkillers. Maybe he should just stick his head under Roy’s bathroom tap. </p><p>When he staggers to the doorway, though, he nearly runs into Roy coming back the other way. There’s a cup in his hand, and a bottle of painkillers in the other. “Oh,” Ed says aloud. “You came back.” </p><p>“What did you think I was doing?” Roy says grumpily, handing over both water and drugs. </p><p>“Abandoning ship,” Ed says cheerfully. “Can you open this for me?” </p><p>Roy frowns as he takes the bottle back and watches Ed chug. “Your motor control wasn’t <em> that </em> off last night.” </p><p>“Nah, I just wanted you to do it.” Ed grins as he takes the pills from Roy, feeling how his face is kinda lopsided from all the muscles on his right side not wanting to squeeze out of self-defense. </p><p>Roy gives him a once-over, but the ditch growing between his eyebrows says it’s not the fun kind. “Did you concuss yourself while I wasn’t looking? Tell me you didn’t go elsewhere before coming to my house.”</p><p>Ed squints some more. “Pretty sure we’d’ve heard about it by now if I did.” </p><p>Roy loses that edge of grim resignation that he only ever gets when Ed mentions to him that he fixed a problem Roy hadn’t been aware was on the docket. “Yes, I imagine we would have,” he says, pretty clearly imagining an impending phone call where some panicked aide wibbles on about Ed storming the Cretan embassy naked. </p><p>Ye of little faith. There’s nothing in the Cretan embassy Ed would consider worth visiting, high or no. He tips the cup back to chug the rest of the water, which spills some of it down his chin and over his chest. Which has nothing on it. Ed glances down, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and trying to ignore the spreading throb of his right temple. “Where’d my shirt go?” He definitely had a shirt on last night. </p><p>Roy’s eyes refocus on him. “Your sweater is in the laundry.” This time the once-over is more thorough, though still nowhere near appropriately appreciative. “You’re still high, then.”</p><p>Debatable. “I’m...” Ed waves a hand, wiggling his fingers to encompass the floaty loose feeling that indicates the drugs are on their way out of his system but his adrenal gland is still dumping dopamine into his bloodstream faster than he can clear it, and also to indicate that parts of his skull are very determined to secede from the rest via bone saw. “Off the good parts. It’s mostly comedown now.” </p><p>“Informative,” Roy says. “When did you take your… dose?” </p><p>“Like. Seven?” Ed’s pretty sure it was seven. He hadn’t like, looked at the clock or anything, but it was after dark and pretty soon after dinner. He squints at Roy. Is he mad? Roy’s face is blank.</p><p>Okay, he’s mad. But not <em> mad </em>mad. “If you’re gonna yell, now’s the time,” Ed informs him, pressing one hand over his eye. “I can almost hear you over the angry chimpanzee playing the drums in here.” </p><p>Roy narrows his eyes. “Go back to sleep.” </p><p>“Fuck, yeah.” Ed staggers back to the bed and falls directly backward, only wincing a little at the bounce jarring his skull. “Wait. Is that a ‘go back to sleep so I don’t have to deal with you right now, Ed’, or a ‘go back to sleep so I can smother you with a pillow, Ed’?” </p><p>“Neither,” Roy says. “I’m not interested in watching you wince your way through my morning. Sleep it off. I’ll expect your full attention later.” </p><p>Ed pops back up on his elbows, railroad spike or not, because <em> that </em> sounds like - “Are we gonna fuck?” </p><p>“I said sleep it off, Ed.” Roy closes the door behind him.</p><p>Ed flops back onto the mattress, grinning like a loon. They’re absolutely gonna fuck.</p><p>-o-</p><p>Despite the incipient boner, Ed did, in fact, pass out the second the painkillers started working. When he wakes again it’s to full giddiness, like the feeling was there the whole time he was out and just waiting for him to get with it. The headache is almost gone, too, just an afterimage of pressure sitting vaguely behind his sinuses. When he rolls out of bed to stretch, he feels pretty fucking fantastic. </p><p>The bedroom smells like Roy, and the bathroom both less and more so: it’s less skin and more aftershave in here, which it turns out there are, like, four different bottles of. Ed detours briefly to sniff them all, sneezes twice, hides all but his favorite under the sink and heads for the shower. </p><p>Even <em> more </em> bottles in here. Shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body scrub, shaving stuff, all in different flavors of wood. <em> Roy </em>doesn’t go around smelling like wood, so Ed can only assume some mysterious grooming alchemy happens in between the application stage and when Roy walks into the office. When Ed uses grapefruit body wash he just smells like a grapefruit. </p><p>Roy also keeps his toothpaste in the shower. Ed’s not about to transmute himself a toothbrush out of the available plastic shower caddy and loofah, so he barracks rooms it and squeezes some onto his finger as he twists the hot water on as far as it’ll go. Steam starts to pour almost immediately, which is a great sign that Ed’s about to have a good shower and also won’t have to go and fix Roy’s boiler at some point this morning. </p><p>When the water hits Ed’s back the sensation makes him gasp aloud, which kinda immediately mitigates itself by making him dribble toothpaste foam down his front. That’s - yeah, shit, he’s definitely still got a little bit of a buzz in his system. It all seems to be manifesting out through his skin, and if this is what a <em> shower </em>feels like - fuck, he wants Roy’s hands back. He wants to feel this more. </p><p>That has him finishing his wash in a hurry. Roy’s towels are nice too, big and fluffy, and his bathroom rug is big enough that Ed doesn’t have to risk scratching any of the tile with his automail foot. He considers his hair, and also yesterday’s sweatpants; the underwear seems unnecessary and also the laundry hamper’s right there, so he tosses it in and figures the sweatpants will be ending up in there in approximately twenty minutes anyway. Then he claps to create what Al calls his blowdryer reaction, dragging his hands over his hair to floof the moisture out in one big crackle of discharge. </p><p>There. All nice and dry and pullable. He leaves the bathroom in just his sweats, chest a little damp still, and heads down the stairs. Game fucking on. </p><p>Roy’s in the kitchen, at the counter with a cup in hand. He’s lost the pompous pajama set and gotten as casual as he ever does, which means his button down is fifteen percent less starched than usual and his pants still look like slacks but have a secret elastic waist instead of buttons. Ed discovers this by way of walking up and sticking two fingers in the waistband as he plasters himself to Roy’s side. Where they’re going they don’t need personal space. “Hi.” </p><p>Of fucking course the bastard stops Ed’s lean via a hand to his face, which he probably doesn’t mean to feel as fun as it does. “Aw, c’mon,” Ed complains. “I’m all sober now, promise.” </p><p>“Did you brush your teeth?” </p><p>“The fuck? I’m not <em> five, </em> Mustang.” Given the lack of spare toothbrush in the bathroom, it’s kind of a valid query, but <em> still. </em></p><p>“You tried to put your boots on my couch yesterday,” Roy points out, like this is relevant. </p><p>“Pretty sure I tried to lick my own hair yesterday too,” Ed informs him. “C’mon. Lemme kiss you.” </p><p>“Sit,” Roy retorts, using the hand on his face to push him off and into a chair. </p><p>“What, no kissing?” Ed can live with no kissing, but also he does kind of want to kiss Roy, if only for the data points. “You seemed pretty okay with all the other mouth stuff yesterday." </p><p>“We,” Roy says, very measuredly as he takes a seat across from Ed, “are going to talk first.” </p><p>That ‘first’ sounds pretty promising, and he’s tempted to push it because Roy’s got a voice on that Ed knows full well is the one he whips out when he’s having to <em> make an effort </em>to be serious about shit. It’s not the one he uses when he’s genuinely pissed. Talking sounds like a fucking terrible idea anyway. </p><p>Still, Ed does actually kind of owe Roy. A thank you at least, and maybe a conversation. The guy did drop his whole Saturday evening to babysit him through six hours of surprise semi-hallucinatory whoopee last night. He’d have been entirely within his rights to call Al, or slam the door in Ed’s face, or pitch him out on the street the second he cracked his eyes open this morning. But no, Roy let him goggle at walls, threaten to destroy the house, practically chew on his earlobes and sleep in his own bed.</p><p>It’s not Roy’s job to clean up his messes anymore, but when Ed dumped himself in Roy’s lap he ponied up like a champ, and now Ed has a debt to pay. Besides, the quicker he coughs up the less likely Roy is to exact interest payments at a later date. </p><p>Conversation it is, then. “Yeah, okay. We can talk.” ‘Talk’ seems like a pretty weak euphemism, since what’s almost definitely about to happen is that Roy’s going to lay into him in that terrible controlled way of his that makes Ed feel fully fucking feral, like he’s about to climb out of his skin or launch himself at Roy just to get him to shut up, but also like he can’t fucking move. It’s even odds whether the impending subject matter is Ed being reckless about getting sloppy-high, or Ed trying to jump him while out of it; whatever, it’s not like them being mad at each other is gonna kill the mood. </p><p>Ed can sit through a brief lecture if it buys him a fastpass to the good bits. He blows out a breath and goes to put his hair up. </p><p>Roy’s gaze snaps to Ed’s hands, and then, as if dragged, to Ed’s throat. Ed becomes aggressively aware that he’s sitting at Roy’s kitchen table, in Roy’s home, tits out and messing with his hair while Roy watches him like a hunting wolf. </p><p>Okay, game still on. This is not the time to get professional just because he’s about to get bitched out. Ed reroutes the beginnings of a braid into a slapdash bun high on his head, and makes sure the whole time Roy’s getting all <em> kinds </em>of eye contact. </p><p>“Thanks for not pushing me out the door and leaving me tied up in your backyard all night, in the, y’know, not in the fun way. I had a real good time last night,” Ed says, grinning deliberate but meaning it - and then memory strikes, erasing all other concerns. “Except for the <em> mustache, </em> holy <em> fuck.”  </em></p><p>Roy frowns - a real frown, weirdly defensive. “It couldn’t have been that bad.”</p><p>“Are you kidding me? It was worse.” The visceral reality of the hallucination floods right back in. "Shit. You looked terrible. It was like rat pubes.” Roy makes a strangled sound. Ed sincerely regrets his turn of phrase, but it was accurate and he has a point to get across. “I mean it. Rat pubes. It was all stringy and curly and it made you look like a pervert in a real bad way.”</p><p>Roy’s face has relaxed and he sounds amused again. “Is there a different mustache I could grow that would make me look like a pervert in a good way?” </p><p>“No! That is <em> not </em> the point I am trying to make, don't <em> ever </em> do that for real, I honestly looked you full in the face and felt not one single spark of attraction. That is not an experience I've ever had before. Do <em> not </em> grow a mustache.”</p><p>Ed realizes that this is probably more information on how much he thinks about Roy’s face than Roy should probably have, and reorients. “Anyway. You wanted to ‘talk’.” He can’t stop himself from making airquotes with his fingers. “Talk.” </p><p>Roy looks like there’s a reluctant smile trying to crawl onto his face for a second before he packs it away again. “Yes,” he says. “Let’s talk.”</p><p>He leans forward and presses his hands together in his playing hardball pose, which is a much more impressive maneuver when he’s wearing his gloves and ever so subtly flashing his I Can Fucking Kill You arrays. Ed crimped that move from him in the days of his fuck-off automail arm. Still, in the bright sunlight Roy’s scars make a patchwork over the tendons, the marks from sutures and repair surgery giving the big stab scars an almost feathery look. His skin is so pale that the scar tissue almost glows in comparison, red and purple and neon pink, like there’s big morbid flowers growing out of the backs of his hands. It looks pretty fucking cool.</p><p>“Are you quite sure you’re sober?” </p><p>“What?” Ed drags his attention back to Roy’s face. “Yeah, I’m fine - look, what does it matter?”</p><p>“Edward.”</p><p><em> “Ugh.” </em> Ed blows out an annoyed breath and thumps his metal leg up onto one of the chair’s struts, leaning back in his seat. "So what, is this the bit where you make me consider all the <em> cooooooonsequences </em> of us fucking? Or are you gonna tell me it's a bad idea, you're too old for me, my superior, employer whatever, and come up with some weaksauce reason not to fuck me into next Tuesday?" </p><p>Roy now appears to have developed a toothache. "Would you consider that necessary.” </p><p>"No. I fucking told you, I’m not five, which apparently you do realize because you’re not trying to lecture me on substance abuse, thank fuck. And you as good as promised me we're going through with this." </p><p>Roy looks relieved, which is fucking hilarious, like maybe he was expecting Ed to come over all delicate maiden. <em> Did </em> Ed hallucinate the part where he asked for a facefuck last night? He doesn’t <em> think </em>he did, but Roy’s not acting like he got the invitation. </p><p>It occurs to Ed that Roy doesn't actually know what he's like in a - relationship situation? Is that what this is? - and based on Ed's like, four vague data points it definitely seems like some people jettison all their common sense as soon as the notion of recurrently getting their dick wet with the same person flits across their brains. Admittedly Ed doesn’t have a lot of specific data on Roy either, but he knows most of the tabloid shit is a sham, and there’s no way Hawkeye would stand for Roy voluntarily lobotomizing himself at her feet. Or him her, for that matter, not that Ed can even imagine Hawkeye going all damp and dishwatery under any circumstances. </p><p>“So what the hell is this? And seriously, spare me the power imbalance crap. I <em> know </em> you have a higher opinion of me than that.”</p><p>“Last night, in the course of propositioning me while under the influence,” Roy says after a long moment, “you indicated that you’d been intending to do so for some time, but hadn’t found the right opportunity.” </p><p>It’s that annoying Roy-thing where instead of asking a question he makes a statement so carefully pointed you end up impaling yourself on it, all on your own. “I wasn’t, like, <em> intending </em> shit,” Ed corrects. Case in point. “Not in general, and definitely not last night.” </p><p>There’s a weirdly expectant pause. Roy’s gaze does that miniscule shift when he’s ticking back and forth between someone’s eyes, like he’s trying to get a better look inside their skull. It’s a little tiny motion, but a flare goes off abruptly in Ed’s head and this whole pre-coital roundtable is suddenly cast in a wildly different light. “Wait.” If this is what he thinks it is, it’s both a minor disaster and the best possible turn of events. He trusts his intuition. “Did you think I was only hitting on you because I was high?” </p><p>Roy’s expression stiffens, just a hair. “Oh <em> fuck </em> me.” Ed cannot believe <em> he </em>is somehow the captain of this good ship Fuckshow. “Hoooly fuck. Okay, look. Not that this will make you feel better, but I've been running this scenario in one way or another since my balls dropped, only it’s just never really been - worth it. You know.” He gestures to convey he can tell he’s making a hash out of the words but he’s trying to sort it out. </p><p>Roy’s listening, at least, all of his attention on Ed despite the fact that he’s still doing that annoying stepping-away-from-the-inside-of-his-own-face thing he does. “And all it takes, to make you decide it would be worth it,” he says after a moment, “is being blitzed out of your skull.” </p><p>“Okay, no,” Ed says, because he does have to clear that up before Roy can really get them started. “I mean, yes, but that’s like, nowhere near the biggest factor. Like - this wouldn’t have happened a month ago, because I wasn’t single, and it wouldn’t have happened six months ago, because we were up to our ears in that rail sabotage thing, and it wouldn’t have happened last year, either, because you and Hawkeye were doing your thing.” </p><p>Roy looks a little off-balance at this litany of explanations, like maybe it’s only now getting through that Ed’s dead serious about this not being an impulse decision. It’s <em> weird </em> to feel so in control with Roy in the room, to realize he has the upper hand so effortlessly, that <em> Roy </em>is the one catching up for once; Ed wonders if this is what cats feel like right before they knock a glass off the counter. In a context where they were talking about something other than the immediate future of their dicks, it would probably be kind of unmooring, but as it stands - Ed’s finding he likes it. </p><p>He lines up the shot, and takes it. “Besides. It’s not like I haven’t noticed you <em> looking </em>.” </p><p>Fucking bullseye. Whatever words Roy was groping around for visibly die a quick and merciless death. Ed considers following up, then decides to savor the moment. Roy’s face is a work of fucking art, if you know how to look. He <em> knows </em>he’s caught, and for once in his slippery political life there’s not a single pathway out of this. </p><p>Ed crosses one ankle over his knee and leans back in his chair. “You’re not <em> that </em> subtle,” he adds, unable not to gloat just a <em> little.  </em></p><p>Roy reintroduces animation into his face by what looks like mechanical intervention. “So it was just a question of timing for you,” he says, in an appreciable imitation of a clarifying tone. </p><p>“Well - I mighta still showed up at your house, before,” Ed has to admit. “If I got blitzed and decided to find you. But I wouldn’t have put my tongue out. Last night I knew you weren’t seeing anybody, and that I wasn’t either. I didn’t fuckin’, like, <em> forget </em> who we are. Or what was happening.”</p><p>“You forgot where your hands were,” Roy points out. “When they were right in front of you.” </p><p><em> “Hallucinations aside, </em>I knew what was happening,” Ed says impatiently. “Chemically fucking up my own inhibitions doesn’t magically create new ones, asshole. Look - the only revelations I had about you last night are that you wear shit pajamas and look hot in glasses, okay? We always had other shit going on, or other people, and I wasn’t gonna chuck a wrench in the gears when we’d finally stopped biting each other every five minutes. Not when I could get the same thing elsewhere.”</p><p>“The same thing,” Roy repeats. “I see.”</p><p>His tone is different now, nothing careful or circumspect about it. It hooks in Ed’s belly, hot and low, reminding him he’s pulling tails on tigers here as he <em> feels </em> Roy retake the conversation. His mouth goes a little dry as Roy leans out of his negotiator pose, shifting back into the much looser variant that says <em> I’m going to enjoy making you suffer; </em>all he ever needs is one slip. </p><p><em> “ </em>That came out wrong,” Ed has to admit. </p><p>“I would hope so,” Roy says mildly. “Unless, of course, you were seriously misrepresenting Brad Giffords last night.” Not so mild. </p><p>Ed’s eyebrows climb up his forehead of their own accord. “Shit, what’d Brad ever do to <em> you?”  </em></p><p>Roy’s eyes narrow, his face going all high and mighty megalomaniac even as his eyes drag over Ed’s body, mouth to chest to throat. “Property damage.” </p><p>Ed’s mouth drops open in equal parts amazement and delight. “You crazy fuck,” he marvels. “Hoooly fucking shit. You - oh my god you want this <em> bad.”  </em></p><p>Roy’s face goes stonier, if anything, which is a <em> dead fucking giveaway </em> that Ed’s hit it right on the money - and it caught him off guard, too, both of them thrown. Holy <em> fuck </em> . “Ohhhh my god. Roy. Bastard.” Ed can’t hold in the giggling. This is <em> amazing. </em> “You - did you just <em> realize </em>that?” </p><p>Roy continues to look increasingly evil, which Ed takes as a resounding <em> yes. </em> “This is - oh my god, this is the best day of my <em> life. </em>And all it took was one little Brad story - fuck, you want more? Wanna hear about how he fucked my mouth? He wasn’t great at that either, couldn’t even pull my hair right, I had to do all the work myself -”</p><p>“Edward.” </p><p>“He <em> was </em>good at some stuff, though,” Ed continues, all but licking his chops. “He’s bigger’n you. He could really hold me down, y’know, when he got going -” </p><p>“That’s enough.” </p><p>Ed shuts it, grinning, because that <em> was </em> enough. Roy’s gone <em> full </em> lord high captain sir general bastard, face cold but eyes hot as coals. “I believe I’m owed an apology.” </p><p>Ed laughs, because <em> that’s </em>capitulation if he’s ever seen it. “Oh yeah? For what?”</p><p>“Where would you like me to start?” Roy says, pushing his chair back and standing up. “You can go to the bedroom on your own or I can drag you up the stairs by your hair.”</p><p>“Holy fuck, is that even a <em> question?” </em>Ed untangles his legs from the chair and yanks his bun apart, shaking it out quick just in time for Roy to wrap his fist in it. </p><p>There’s nothing fast or sharp about it, just a measured, methodical grip that pulls on Ed’s scalp all over and presses Roy’s knuckles to the base of Ed’s skull. He cranes his head back, as much to keep looking at Roy’s face as to feel the pull; Roy looks critical, assessing, like this isn’t getting to him at all, which is a pretty dead-on sign that it’s <em> really </em>getting to him. </p><p>Ed grins like a piranha. “I was promised a dragging. Sir.” </p><p>Roy shakes him, not very hard, not like he’s trying to be gentle but like he’s checking his grip. “We’re not on your schedule anymore.”</p><p>Ed tries not to squirm like a delighted idiot, though it’s hard going. He’s <em> only </em> had this fantasy since he was like fifteen, though it was admittedly much less developed then; back then he hadn’t known choking could be sex stuff. “We don’t have to make it to the bedroom,” he offers brightly. “You can fuck me over the table right here - or over the counter there, oooh, maybe your neighbors can see -” </p><p><em> That </em> gets him hauled out of his chair, finally, scalp burning as Roy makes good and starts dragging him down the hall. “Whee!” Ed says, stumbling on purpose to feel his hair catch. Roy inhales like he’s gonna say something but must decide to save his breath for yanking Ed up the stairs. Ed’s laughing, can’t help it, and it’s probably not making Roy <em> less </em>mad, but then, that’s not what Ed’s going for. </p><p>Roy backs him into the bedroom, using his grip to shove Ed onto the mattress. Ed laughs more as he bounces, catching himself on his hands and rolling onto his front just to see what Roy’ll do. “Strip,” Roy orders, making no move to take his own clothes off. </p><p>“What for?” Ed says, wiggling around in a way that <em> could </em> be construed as a prelude to taking his pants off. “Ooh! Am I gonna get <em> spanked?”  </em></p><p>“No.” </p><p>“Aw!” </p><p>“I don’t see what you’ve done to earn that.” </p><p>Ed kicks his legs up and bats his eyelashes cartoonishly. “Be cute and annoying?” </p><p>“If that’s all it took for Brad, no wonder you weren’t satisfied,” Roy says coolly. “I told you to strip.” </p><p>Oh, so Roy <em> does </em>want to hear more Brad stories. “What? Sorry, I was just thinking about Brad some more,” Ed says innocently, propping himself on his elbows. “He’s just really distracting, you know? I think you might have to help me out here -”</p><p>Roy sets his palm to Ed's cheek, gentle as shark skin. Ed cuts off, shivering at the threat and the promise in his touch; Roy's testing him, letting him know he hasn't forgotten what Ed asked. Ed hasn't forgotten. In full daylight he could try to pass it off as a throwaway remark - it's not like he didn't come out with plenty of ridiculous shit last night, Roy would probably buy it - but here's the thing. Why the fuck would he?</p><p>“You gonna do it or just posture at me?” </p><p>Roy's hand cracks against his cheek, lightning fast, <em>loud, </em>and oh god he doesn’t just do it <em>once, </em>Ed gets it three more times, <em>four, </em>heat blooming over his skin. He’s been hit in the face plenty - hell, <em>Mustang’s </em>hit him in the face before - but this is different and new and thrills down his nerves like dry lightning. Roy lets him gasp it out for a second, then grips him by the jaw and rolls him over, and Ed feels himself go boneless, sprawling out across the mattress. </p><p>He hasn’t done a lot of this stuff yet, only found out it was a whole <em> thing </em> a little while back, that you could have something like fighting and sex together at the same time. And while Ed knew right away he wanted to try <em> all of it, </em> in practice it’s been kinda more complicated. Most people don’t fight like Ed does - most people don’t fight at all, don’t have the training and don’t know what to do with him. Or they just aren’t into adding sex, and that’s fine but it does eliminate a big chunk of population from his options. And regular sex is extremely... whatever, people seem to be just doing their thing, getting plenty from it, but it feels like almost every time, Ed’s off onto the next thing and they’re still rubbing away. Sex is all about sensations, feelings, and Ed doesn’t know if it’s just his usual catastrophically low boredom threshold translating into this as with all other things, but it boils down to the same thing: okay, <em> this </em> is what <em> that </em>feels like - what’s next? </p><p>Hence the getting high. <em> Great </em>idea. Best one Ed’s had in a while, and that’s counting the polymer elasticization breakthrough he had with the civilian engineering team in R&amp;D three weeks ago. He figured it was on him to make his own sexual experiences worthwhile, and he wasn’t about to ingest some street shit that fuck knows who manufactured in their bathtub, so doing his own pharma it was, if he wanted to fuck Brad or Hal or Charelle or whoever again and not be itching to at least turn on the radio or something the whole time.</p><p>And it turns out psychotropics are <em> great </em> , one little pill dissolving on his tongue and suddenly the whole <em> world </em> is new, he’s having a completely novel experience just existing in his own kitchen and it comes with genuinely unimaginable brain shit, like - stuff he <em> really </em>couldn’t have predicted, or read about, or had described to him in any meaningful way. He was piloting his own brain in a new and interesting way, still in control of its decisions but not, every part of it a challenge and a reward - </p><p>- and now, getting backhanded by Roy? O-<em> kay. </em>Instant high, without the sound distortion. </p><p>Sex with Roy is <em> not </em>gonna be boring. </p><p>“Careful,” Ed says breathlessly, fingers digging into the bedcovers. “You keep that up, I just won’t leave.”</p><p><em> “Leave?” </em>Roy scoffs. “You already don’t come when called. You think I’d just let you go?” His voice is as rough as Ed’s ever heard it, low and mean and running up Ed’s spine like the flat of a razor. “You oughtn’t be let out without a muzzle, you little witch. And now you won’t be. You wanted this so bad? It’s what you’ll get.”</p><p>Ed, dizzy from <em> muzzle </em>and how much his entire nervous system can apparently jolt from a word alone, nearly kicks when Roy twists his grip in, fingers biting into his jaw. He’s gonna bruise. “You brought yourself here,” Roy says softly. “You aren’t getting out. You’re mine.” </p><p>Ed’s mouth falls open. Roy went there. Of fucking course he went there, they’ve <em> been </em> there; Roy fucking opened this show with, fuck, fucking <em> property damage. </em>Ed tries desperately to screw his head back on, tries to find something to bite back with when Roy’s just taken an axe to his knees. “Nothing new about that.”</p><p><em> That </em>lands. Roy lifts his hand off Ed’s face, which is the meanest thing he could’ve done under the circumstances. “You’d think you’d know to act like it.” </p><p>Ed rasps his tongue over his bottom lip, flying on the vicious light in Roy’s eyes. “Make me.”</p><p>Roy cracks him across the face again, and then the other side, and this time he doesn’t stop at four. Ed’s face feels molten by the time Roy withdraws his hand, ears ringing, both cheeks blazing hot and cold at the same time. His tongue is heavy in his mouth, his lips stinging; he feels like he’s blinking through molasses. </p><p>“If this is supposed to make me sorry,” Ed manages, “s’not fuckin’ working.” </p><p>“Oh, I’ve long given up on training you to do more than mouth along to the words.” Roy tilts Ed’s head to the side, looking him over, critical and detached as he - examines the marks he left, oh fuck. He’s lost some of the vicious heat, leashed it all back under that fucking self control, and Ed would miss it only he knows this Roy is the dangerous one. “But the words do matter. And I do like to hear you say sorry.” </p><p>“Sorry?” Ed offers, as insincerely as he can manage, and Roy’s hand lifts off his face but only to backhand Ed again across the other cheek before he can even start to think about sticking his tongue out. It rings in his ears and all the way through his skull, sharp and clear, and all Ed can think is <em> fuck </em> that’s good. </p><p>“You should apologize to Brad, too,” Roy says softly, hand returning to squeeze at Ed’s jaw. “Throwing yourself at him like that. You know he’s out of his depth.”</p><p>“Brad’s fine,” Ed says breathlessly, though he does feel a little twinge at using the guy as light artillery. “Brad can take care of himself.” </p><p>“That as may be.” Roy tips Ed’s head up and back, running his index finger once over Ed’s mouth. He’s watching his own hand, like Ed’s just there as a stage prop. “He has no idea how to handle you.”</p><p>Which is true, not that Ed’s gonna admit it. “And you do?” </p><p>Roy arches his eyebrows. “Whose bed are you in right now?” he says, turning Ed’s head to make him look at the pillows off to the side. “Who did you come looking for last night?” </p><p>“Maybe Brad wasn’t available,” Ed says, as innocently as he can when he’s a little bit trying to hump Roy’s leg. “Maybe I went to him first. Maybe you were my third, mm, stop of the night -” </p><p>Roy changes his grip on Ed’s face, squeezing his cheeks together to cut off his words, and then he squeezes harder to drop his jaw and pushes two fingers in Ed’s mouth. </p><p>Ed can’t stifle the gasp even as he automatically tries to close his mouth on Roy’s hand. It’s not deep, Roy’s not trying to choke him or make him gag, but his fingers are definitely <em> in there </em>and he’s sure shut Ed the fuck up. No one’s ever done that before. No one’s ever probably even dared think to try. </p><p>“You know, I really don’t know what to do with you sometimes,” Roy says conversationally, despite the pretty ample evidence in Ed’s mouth that shows he knows exactly what to do. “I know you can behave. You just don’t want to.”</p><p>Ed isn’t sure what he’d say if he had the means to speak right now. His head’s stuck somewhere between radio static and total lobotomy, spun out by the total unexpected wonder of Roy sticking his hand in his mouth. The thumb Roy’s digging into the underside of his jaw confirms that he knows. Ed sucks reflexively and then lets his mouth slacken around Roys fingers, trying to push his tongue in between them, letting his hand ride deeper as he tries to convey with his eyes that the answer to all Roy’s hypotheticals here is <em> duh. </em></p><p>It’s probably not great that Ed’s conditioned response to Roy looking disapproving is to assume he’s just done something awesome, especially given the awesome thing this time was getting high and horny all over Roy’s living room. Roy’s not doing anything to change that by pushing Ed’s sweatpants down his hips. Ed’s dick hits his belly immediately, making him twitch, only Roy ignores it completely, taking his free hand and pressing it flat over Ed’s collarbones, right at the base of his throat. </p><p>Then he leans in, pressure building. He’s bracing his weight on Ed’s chest as if he were the mattress, casually, carelessly, not holding back. It’s not choking but it’s not <em> not </em>a chokehold either, and Ed has to work to breathe, has to push his chest up against Roy’s hand as Roy looks down at him, eyes gone lazy and amused. Ed wants to bite his hand so he sucks instead, breathing hard through his nose, dragging his automail foot up the back of Roy’s calf to try and get him closer.</p><p>“I know you like it,” Roy says unconcernedly, as if Ed spoke aloud. “I just don’t care. This isn’t for you. That this,” and he lets the pressure up off Ed’s chest all of a sudden, making him gasp and choke, “is what I happen to want… isn’t that lucky for you?” </p><p>He drags two fingers down Ed’s chest, watching it heave with a critical kind of look. Ed’s heart is beating wild in his ribs, in his dick, and he spreads his legs out wider, arching with his hips as he pants around Roy’s hand, but Roy ignores that too. “I asked you a question,” he says, pinning Ed with his gaze again, the laziness gone. “An easy one. Yes or no. But you just need every little thing beaten into you, don’t you.” </p><p>Ed nods fervently around Roy’s grip, <em> fuck </em> yeah, oh yes <em> please </em>let’s have a beating. Roy narrows his eyes, but not like he’s displeased. “Say thank you.” </p><p>“‘Thank you,” Ed parrots, and he’s surprised by how much he likes that, trying to talk and having it ruined by Roy’s hand. </p><p>“Good,” Roy says, and before Ed can try and talk more he lifts his palm off Ed’s chest entirely to sit back and wrap it around his dick. </p><p>Ed whines into Roy’s fingers, embarrassingly high, not nearly loud enough, though Roy fixes that pretty quick when he starts to stroke. It’s dry, rough, oh fuck Ed can <em> feel </em>the scars against his dick, Roy’s grip calloused and uneven with the thick ridge of tissue across his palm. </p><p>“Of course, it’s not like a beating is any kind of incentive for you. Not to stop.” </p><p>The thought of Roy going at him, <em> really </em> going at him, physically, is an open wild unknown. If Roy decided to hurt him, without alchemy, just his hands - Ed’s stronger, and faster, but Roy would find a way to <em> make </em>him take it. Roy would corner him, and he’d disarm him, and he’d find where the dam breaks and send the whole thing crashing down. Ed doesn’t even know what that would look like. He can’t imagine it. He wants to find out. </p><p>“I wonder what it would take to really punish you.” </p><p><em> “Please,” </em>Ed tries to say, involuntary, though of course it comes out as just a mishmash of sound. He’s not sure if he’s glad he can’t beg clearly or if he needs Roy to hear him.</p><p>Of course, Roy doesn’t need to hear him. “Oh, now we learn our manners?” He drags his fist up Ed’s dick and back down, a pace that’s somehow simultaneously too fast and too slow. Ed attempts a scowl, and shoves his hip up against Roy’s forearm. Roy stops moving the hand on his dick. “Apparently not.”</p><p>Ed twists again, half-involuntary and knowing it’s a bad call even as he does it. This is not the way to get what he wants from Roy, not even when Roy’s happy to retaliate for Ed’s acting out. Roy stays completely still, exhaling through his nose and looking up at the ceiling like he’s done, like he doesn’t even want to look at Ed anymore. It’s terrible. His mouth’s full of Roy’s fingers, and there’s enough pressure on his dick that he’s about ready to melt, and Roy is a bastard who will not do another fucking thing until Ed demonstrates appropriate regret. </p><p>He’s not gonna be able to show it by moving. Ed lies still as he can, trying to radiate more contrition than rabid lust. “I don’t know what I expected,” says Roy, still not looking at him. From this angle it almost looks like he has a jawline, but it’s hard to focus on that when the flat displeasure in his voice is so absolute. Ed focuses every single one of his burnt-out nerves on staying still. “Not after yesterday’s little performance.” </p><p>Keeping still is a fucking battle, from the clench of his fists to the twitching muscles in his belly, but Ed’s not a quitter and he’s <em> going </em>to get what he wants. Roy looks down at him, assessing, and abruptly drags a rough stroke up and down his dick. Ed moans and sucks hard not to bite, neck arching but hips staying still, and if Roy doesn’t look approving he at least keeps moving his hand. “See, now you behave,” he says, slowly starting to speed up; he doesn’t have calluses to drag but his punishing grip more than makes up for it. “Now that there’s something in it for you. You’re not even sorry, are you.”</p><p>Ed whines around his mouthful of hand. “You show up half to midnight like a stray dog, half dressed, expecting me to just drop everything and cater to you. Unbelievable. You were taught better, you entitled. Little. Brat,” Roy says, emphasizing each word with a stroke. “Leaving aside the inappropriate behavior - Edward. Showing up with your tits out, drugged out of your mind? <em> That </em> was your approach?” </p><p>Roy squeezes brutally hard, making Ed squeak and writhe up into it. <em> “Really? </em> When two minutes of thought and five minutes of conversation would have given you a <em> much </em> better night, if only you’d <em> talked to me </em> before dosing yourself up and wandering the streets dressed like a homeless harlot.” </p><p>He starts moving his fingers shallowly in Ed’s mouth, in and out, and he’s not doing it hard but it moves Ed’s whole head against the mattress, making him press his tongue up, neck muscles turning to water. He can feel his eyelashes fluttering. “I really should teach you a lesson,” Roy says meditatively. “Teach you to ask properly when you want to get your mouth fucked. Let’s hear you say it, hm? Tell me. Please, Roy, fuck my mouth.”</p><p>Oh, Ed must’ve made <em> some </em>kinda face when he tried to talk through Roy’s hand. “Please,” Ed repeats, completely unintelligible, thrilling at the way his tongue’s trapped by Roy’s fingers; he wants them deeper, wants to lick the scars on Roy’s palms. “Fuck my mouth.” </p><p>He sounds stupid as all hell, like an owl hooting through a kazoo,, and the laugh is pretty obvious in his voice even if his actual words come out oatmeal. “That wasn’t very convincing,” Roy says, unimpressed. “Do it again.”</p><p>Ed tries a halfhearted glare but can’t quite manage even that, not when Roy’s playing with him like he wants even if he is being a pedantic asshole about it. “Please fuck my mouth,” Ed mangles, trying to make his eyes big and pleading. He does, actually, want Roy to facefuck him. “Please, Roy, c’mon, fuck my mouth -”</p><p>And Roy must see he means it, because he pulls his hand out and wipes his fingers on Ed’s chest, leaving him gasping with surprise. “Alright. Now you can blow me.” </p><p>Ed just lays there for a couple seconds, blinking stupid with his jaw slack, whole mouth tingly and numb. It must be too long for Roy, because he gets Ed’s bicep in a businesslike grip and pulls him off the bed, just controlled enough that Ed doesn’t totally slam the shit out of his knees on the rug. Ed catches himself with his hands on Roy’s thighs as Roy sits down on the edge of the bed, getting a first class view to Roy opening his fly and getting his cock out. Fuck. Ed’s mouth is already fucked up, tongue heavy, lips bruisy and overripe. This is gonna feel awesome. </p><p> He leans in, but Roy stops him with a hand on his collarbone. “Condom.” </p><p>Ed makes a noise of protest, which comes out interestingly ruined by his uncooperative mouth. “Do we have to?” </p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>“I don’t wanna suck on latex,” Ed tries. </p><p>“I don’t care,” Roy says calmly, reaching over to the bedside table and extracting a box of rubbers. </p><p>“Don’t you wanna come in my mouth?” </p><p>“I am going to come in your mouth.” Roy hands him the condom, totally unmoved by Ed’s plight. “Put it on me.” </p><p>“Lazy,” Ed complains, which gets him slapped again. </p><p>Roy puts a hand in his hair while he’s gasping from that, pulling him closer and making him shuffle forward on his knees. “Put it on,” Roy repeats, patient as a stone.</p><p>Ed puts it on. Roy lets him get away with tossing the wrapper on the ground, probably because Ed gets in as much sneaky groping as he can getting the rubber down his cock. He’s pretty much expecting to get his face fucked from the word go, but Roy takes his time getting his hands in Ed’s hair, that evaluating look back on his face as he winds one fist into Ed’s nape and strokes back his bangs. “Are you any good at this?” he asks critically. </p><p>Ed blinks for a second, nonplussed, and then his eyes narrow. Un-fucking-fortunately, Roy’s fucking mind games tend to work even if you know exactly what he’s doing. “I’m <em> great </em>at this.” </p><p>“Yes, I’m sure you’ve been more than adequate by the standards of the assorted Brads you've been fucking,” Roy says. Ed is beginning to regret ever meeting Brad, much less mentioning him to Roy. <em> “Are </em>you good at this? Or have you just decided you are?” </p><p>“Well if the past fifteen minutes are any judge, you’ll complain about it either way,” Ed growls, reaching for Roy’s cock. </p><p>Roy catches his hand by the wrist, giving him a look of threatening patience. “Do I need to keep you from biting?” </p><p>Oh fuck <em> yeah. </em> “You should <em> try,” </em>Ed says, resolving then and there to give the worst blowjob ever to suck. At least to start with. “Come on, let me at the dick.” </p><p>“And after we just had this whole talk on misbehavior.” Roy uses Ed’s hair to tilt his head back and pushes his thumb in Ed’s mouth, and this time instead of letting it sit nice on Ed’s tongue he goes deep, wedging it right between Ed’s molars. </p><p>He can’t fully bite down like this, Ed realizes, testing it, heat shivering anew in his belly. Roy can just stick his cock in there all he wants. </p><p>“Well?” Roy says, shaking him a little by the face. “Get to it.” </p><p>Ed was gonna make it terrible on purpose, but like this it’s an actual challenge, a puzzle for his brain to solve, like he’s gotta figure out how to do it right before he can do it wrong. His cheek is pulled wide by Roy’s hand, saliva pooling freely, and he presses his tongue to Roy’s cock as he takes it into his mouth. He can’t quite seal his lips like this, and that makes sucking a lot harder, makes him work his tongue more to try and fill the gap.</p><p>Roy <em> tsks </em> above him. “Really, Edward. I know you know how to work harder than that.” </p><p>Roy’s mind games work even if you know what he’s doing. Ed musters a glare but can’t quite turn his head up to level it properly, gets distracted by the pull of his hair, sucks harder anyway. He drags his tongue hard on the way up and swallows on the way down, best he can with Roy’s thumb a living bit in his teeth. Spit slides down his chin and he’s pretty sure he’s starting to tear up but he doesn’t care, it’s not important, what matters is that Roy’s starting to breathe harder and harder despite all his fucking complaints. </p><p>Ed pushes himself down further, dizzy with the way Roy’s hand clenches on his neck, the way Roy’s thighs tense under his hands. His jaw aches and it’s hard to keep his lips over his teeth like this but Roy’s belly is starting to move, his breath deepening, speeding up. And then Roy starts pulling his hair, slowly, repeatedly, not like he’s trying to drive the blowjob but like he wants to make Ed feel it all over. Ed tilts his head more to make his whole scalp pull, making him shudder. </p><p>“You know,” Roy says musingly, voice somehow steady despite the heave of his chest, “if I take my hand out, I can fuck your throat.” </p><p>Yes. Yes, that’s - they should do that, yes. Roy seems to get it, tugging his thumb out from between Ed’s teeth and - standing up, towering over him. Ed gasps for breath, staring up dumbly, head suddenly feeling loose and untethered now that Roy’s let go of his grip. </p><p>Both hands come down to cradle Ed’s face. “Will you be good?” </p><p>Ed nods.</p><p>“Will you bite?” </p><p>Ed shakes his head. </p><p>“Good.” </p><p>Roy pulls him back on, and this time he goes deeper. </p><p>Ed feels what must be the last of his cognitive capacity slip away, clocking out for the evening. He sways forward, heavy in his body, and Roy catches him, slides a hand under his jaw, pulls him back. Ed gropes around disjointedly until he finds a handful of pant leg, holding on just for something to hold onto. <em>This </em>is the good part, of any fight, of any workout that leaves him trembling too hard to stand. It’s the place where everything’s gone calm and slow, balanced between hunger and satisfaction, between all sensation and none. His body’s producing a chemical cocktail that makes his own chem lab attempts feel like the buzz off one drink. There’s a viscous feeling in his muscles and a static charge in his nerves. The side of his mouth where Roy jammed his thumb feels slack and tender, rubbed rawer every time Roy pushes in. </p><p>He knew Roy could bring him here, he thinks, hazy and distant. And he did. Ed wants to do something, give back a little to Roy, but that’s not what this is about. Or maybe he’s giving plenty already, he thinks uncertainly, and then he’s thinking nothing as Roy shifts his grip. Ed whines as his head is dragged up and back. He feels his throat open.  </p><p>“That’s it.” There’s satisfaction in Roy’s voice, deeper, rougher, tingling down Ed’s spine. Roy likes it. “That’s good. You’re doing exactly right.” </p><p>The little bit of Ed’s brain that’s still composing thoughts points out that he’s doing exactly nothing. Roy’s hand in his hair is about all that’s keeping him vertical right now. He feels like he’s melting down through his own kneecaps, sinking lower and lower even as everything goes more and more floaty and light. Oxygen, maybe, as he gasps around the pace Roy’s set, drooling, wetness sliding down his cheeks, his chin. </p><p>Roy changes his grip, tilts Ed’s head and speeds up. There’s a snarl building under his breath and Ed whines in response, wants to be louder but hasn’t got the air for it. Then Roy tips Ed’s head back further, takes one hand off his jaw and presses it down right at the base of Ed’s throat. </p><p>It’s the same spot on his chest, right where he did it before, and the skin there is - aware, of pressure and the memory of pressure, Roy’s hand a reminder and a threat. And it must do something for Roy too, because he keeps his cock deep on the next stroke, keeping Ed pressed down, breathing raggedly up overhead. Ed struggles for a moment on automatic, body confused, twisting, before Roy tightens his grip some more. Ed stops fighting. He hangs in Roy’s hands, the peak of the arc, weightless as a trampoline jump, and too soon Roy exhales hard and pulls his cock out. </p><p>Ed heaves for breath, coughing, slumping down against Roy’s legs. “Good,” Roy says, ragged, still holding Ed up by the hair. “Good.”</p><p>Ed can’t contribute more than wet panting. Roy doesn’t seem to want more from him, though, just hauls him up, dumping Ed onto the bed. Roy goes away, and there’s footsteps, a door opening, a tap running. Ed catalogues that he’s been exploded into his component molecules and eats the sheets. </p><p>He has to roll his head to the side after a bit or really risk asphyxiation. His neck feels like taffy, his shoulders spaghetti. Shit, he’s pretty sure his <em> automail </em> toes are tingling. He wonders what it’d take for Roy to really make him black out. </p><p>That’s probably what Winry calls an unsafety thought. He should think about it later, when he doesn’t have every endorphin in the world crowding up to tell him how awesome that’d be. </p><p>The mattress dips, then dips more. Roy rolls Ed over, probably checking whether he’s still alive; Ed spits out hair, flails out a hand and manages to catch a fistful of shirt. Roy huffs an amused noise and rolls Ed further, lying back on the bed and letting Ed collapse onto his chest. </p><p>“Holy fuck,” Ed manages, when he can feel his face again. “Holy <em> fuck.”  </em></p><p>“Quite.”</p><p>“Didn’even come,” Ed mumbles, marveling. </p><p>Roy hooks a hand in Ed’s knee and draws it up over his hip, not in a sexy way but more like he’s just rearranging Ed to his own comfort. “You can finish yourself if you like.” </p><p>“No, I.” Ed doesn’t want to move, isn’t sure he can, and his dick is not center stage right now anyway. He can’t fucking believe his original expectation for this was <em> not boring. </em> He feels like he wrapped his hand around a power line. Shit, Roy never even took his clothes off. Shit, Ed didn’t even <em> come.  </em></p><p>So that’s him sewn up for the foreseeable, Ed thinks, kind of giddily. Bye-bye Brad. Which is what Roy was going for, he’s pretty sure. It bodes well for chances of a repeat performance. Multiple repeat performances. Repeat performance until he can’t fucking stand. Shit, if this time he didn’t even come… </p><p>“Next time,” Ed mutters, feeling very goal-oriented.</p><p>Roy’s hand squeezes the tendon at the back of Ed’s knee. “Setting terms now, are we?” His voice has lost the edge from earlier, but there’s still an undercurrent that feels like a noose looping around Ed’s throat. “Be careful what you wish for.” </p><p>“Won’t,” Ed mumbles, content with his risk-seeking behavior. </p><p>Roy just chuckles. It’s his nice one, the one that makes him sound all genial and trustworthy and not at all a man who’d choke you into next week. Good to know they’re on the same page. </p><p>Ed lets himself lay there like a bag of jellyfish, basking in the high, vaguely registering his dick gradually going soft. Roy’s warm under his cheek, breath and heartbeat gradually slowing down; good to lie on, too, not too bony. Ed rubs his face into Roy’s chest, only half realizing he’s wiping his mouth on Roy’s shirt. Oh well. Roy doesn’t even seem to notice, which is a first for a guy who changes his gloves the second he gets a scuffmark on one knuckle. Must’ve been good for him too. </p><p>It’s been a long long time since Ed felt any kind of self-conscious about his body, and being naked doesn’t bother him in the slightest; still, being naked next to Roy, in Roy’s bed, while Roy wears what for most people would pass as full-on business attire, he’s a lot more <em> aware </em> of it than usual. Roy seems totally unconcerned about it, letting Ed sprawl along his side like he’s got naked blonds lolling around here every day, and this is one of the times Ed can’t quite tell if he genuinely doesn’t care or not. </p><p>Hm. He stretches like a cat, showy, slow, fingers to toes. It means rolling away from Roy a little, turning his head out of where it’s mashed up against his shoulder and arching his back far enough that he can actually see Roy’s upside-down face. He grins like a lunatic. </p><p>Roy puts his hand on Ed’s face. It’s lazy and without intent, like he doesn’t want to see Ed’s smug mouth. Ed lets it flop him back down, knocking his arms out to his sides, and when Roy takes his hip and pulls him back over he goes. Ed grins into Roy’s collarbone, giddily pleased. <em> Property damage. </em> Ed’s gonna show him fucking <em> property damage. </em> Roy’s fucking handed him a loaded rocket launcher, and the best part is he knows it too. Probably why he’s gripping onto Ed like he wants to hang a tag labelled <em> if found, return to General Bastard </em> around his neck <em> . </em></p><p>“If you find you're still feeling the need to fuck other people, do let me know,” Roy says, after a moment. “I will fix that.” </p><p>“Ha!” Ed mushes his face into Roy’s collarbone for a second. “No fucking kidding. Shit, I owe Brad a gift basket.” </p><p>“You do not,” Roy says immediately. </p><p>Ed laughs, delighted, head lolling back to Roy’s shoulder. “Oh my god, you want to murder Brad.”</p><p>“I do not want to murder Brad,” Roy says in his testifying-before-grand-jury voice.</p><p>“You absolutely want to murder Brad. You totally said that in a serial killer way, don’t lie.” </p><p><em> “Want </em> is a little strong,” Roy allows. “I am <em> prepared </em> to murder him. What I <em> want </em> is to remove him from my and particularly your sightlines for the rest of all time. By any means necessary."</p><p>“You’re so fucking crazy,” Ed says comfortably, tilting his face up - and this time Roy does kiss him, a hand pressed to the back of his head. </p><p>Ed wasn’t expecting it, nor the pleased little rush that chases itself through him like an aftershock of the big earlier wave. His lips are buzzy and sensitized still, probably swollen, and Roy’s mouth makes it all light up all over again. He’s good at it, too, moves sure and slow, doesn’t try to randomly bite him or stick his tongue in Ed’s mouth; Ed lets himself get carried along by it, feeling too lazy and loose to do more than let Roy do what he likes. </p><p>Roy draws back slow, keeping his hand on Ed’s face, holding him by the chin to make eye contact. “How do you feel?” </p><p>“Fuckin’ awesome,” Ed says. “Told you. I have the <em> best </em>ideas.” </p><p>“Debatable,” Roy says, but he sets Ed’s head back to his chest again. </p><p>“Empirically tested,” Ed counters. “Thanks for your participation in the study, etcetera.”</p><p>“Rude,” Roy chides, but he starts rubbing the pads of his fingers low on Ed’s scalp, right above his neck, and much like the rest of this morning it’s doing absolutely nothing to change Ed’s behavior. He’s seriously going to move in. If he doesn’t disintegrate into the mattress first. </p><p>“Is there any particular reason you didn’t want me to call your brother?” </p><p>That makes Ed grimace a little despite the headrub. Al doesn’t exactly disapprove of some of the ways Ed has his fun, but he pointedly doesn’t endorse them either. Drugs are a quiet point of contention, and Ed gets it - for him it’s about new stuff, new sensations, but for Al it seems like giving up control, and Al’s experiences with losing control of his body are pretty much all to do with possession, discorporealization and the armor starting to reject his soul. </p><p>So yeah. Making Al deal with that would not have been a good time. Ed can tell Al doesn’t want to be a nag about this, and Ed doesn’t want to fight either, and sometimes it’s just better to look the other way and quietly let each other do their own thing. </p><p>Roy doesn’t need the whole thesis on that, though. “Al’s not into drugs,” Ed says aloud. “And I stress him out sometimes.” </p><p>“Ah.”</p><p>“Plus he was busy. Some kinda teambuilding bar crawl thing with his, y’know, university people. I figured you’d be in.” </p><p>Not that his thought process had been all that developed at that point. Drugs brain had just said hey, finding Roy is a <em> great </em>idea, and hey, drugs brain had been right. </p><p>“Do you get high alone often?” </p><p>Ed tilts his head back again so Roy can see his grin. “You want me to come over and get high here instead?” </p><p>Roy sighs. “It’s preferable, yes.” </p><p>“You sure?” Ed teases. “Not gonna be all, no Edward, you can’t fuck me, you’re too high?” </p><p>Roy sighs again, this time with feeling. “It was a necessary conversation, Edward. As was proved by this morning.”</p><p>"Yeah, sure. If you need it in writing too I can make a note for you,” Ed says generously, only eighty percent sarcastic. “‘I, Edward Elric, being of at least reasonably sound mind and logically consistent if not rational judgment, do hereby swear that your dick lacks the power to give me a personality transplant, no matter how good you are with it -”</p><p>Roy puts his hand on Ed’s jaw again, right where he’d had it earlier, squeezing just the slightest bit. Ed shuts up. “I believe oral consent will suffice here, thank you.”</p><p>“I gave you all the oral consent you could handle,” Ed tells him. “I nearly orally consented your dick off.” </p><p>“Mm.” Roy changes his grip, ignoring Ed’s complaining noise to tilt his face up some more, eyes tracking over his jawline, his chin. “You may end up with some bruising.”</p><p>“Shit, you think?” Ed flails a hand up and runs it over his cheeks, feeling mostly heat and a sore jaw but also a little bit of promising tenderness. “Fuck, I hope so. Shit. Have I got, like, finger marks?”</p><p>“Too early to tell,” Roy says, though he seems pleased. Doesn’t seem to be bothered that Ed gets excited about this stuff, either. “It may be advisable to tell people you got in a fight come Monday.” </p><p>Ed grins, feeling the ache as his cheeks pull. “Oh yeah? Tell ‘em I got tossed off by a wild mustang?”</p><p>“You insufferable little goblin,” Roy says, and tries to push Ed’s cackling face into the mattress. “Ungrateful is what you are. First the mustache, now this. I should stake you in the backyard after all.” </p><p>“Hahaaaa, oh man.” Ed has to grapple to stay on Roy’s chest, though not very hard and mostly to enjoy the resistance as Roy gives up trying to roll him and just smushes his face back into his chest. “Seriously, that thing was horrible.”</p><p>“It <em> cannot </em>have been that bad. A mustache, for goodness’ sake.”</p><p>“Worst hallucination I’ve ever had, hands down. And I’m pretty sure I hallucinated my actual hands dissolving.” Ed gnaws reflectively on Roy’s shirt for a bit. “Could’ve been worse, I guess. Could’ve hallucinated you with a beard. Or bald.”</p><p>Roy is doing a sort of petting motion on his face, right where the fucking thing perched on his upper lip. “I didn’t think you had such firm opinions about what I do with my face.”</p><p>“It’s public property at this point,” Ed says, giving Roy’s petting hand the hairy eyeball. </p><p>Roy stops smoothing over his lip like he’s an evil heiress and it’s one of those hairless cat breeds. “Not quite,” he says, looking balefully back at Ed. “My civil service prospects are still a few years off.”</p><p>“Make it a decade with the mustache,” Ed informs him frankly. None of them would ever hear the end of it. The mustache would be more politically damaging than actively playing a hand in the assassination of the previous Fuhrer. “I mean it. Political suicide. It made you look like a cheap watch salesman.”</p><p>Roy makes a disgruntled sound, and Ed decides to show a little mercy. “Look, if you’re tryna look older, just do your hair back like you do for the, formal, whatever, dog and pony shit. It’s - okay, it won’t make you look <em> that </em>much older,” he has to admit, “but it looks good. And it makes you look less like you’re about to dick the mayor’s daughter.” Honesty compels him to add, “More like you’re about to dick the mayor’s wife. And his career.”</p><p>Roy is looking at him like he can’t quite decide whether to be flattered or annoyed, though the fact that he can clearly tell enough to <em> be </em>flattered kinda tells Ed he’s probably gone overboard in sharing his aesthetic opinions here. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Roy says.</p><p>“No,” Ed says automatically. Then his traitor mouth betrays him. “If leading respectable wives of public officials into sin isn’t what you’re after, you could try the glasses.”</p><p>“You think I look hot in glasses.” </p><p>“No,” Ed repeats, this time on principle.</p><p>“I’m going to chain you up in the backyard.”</p><p>“Okay, yes,” Ed says. </p><p>“Leave you there for as long as it takes me to grow a mustache -”</p><p>“No!”</p><p>“- and then make you blow me again. This time like you mean it.”</p><p>“I swear to god,” Ed says into Mustang’s bastard fucking shoulder, “I will bite your dick off.” The biggest problem is that he’s not sure he means it. After the last twenty-four hours, he’s pretty sure Roy could drop him with full muttonchops and a monocle. This is a terrible thing to realize about arguably the worst person in your life. </p><p>Then his head pops up. “What the fuck do you mean, <em> like you mean it, </em>asshole?” </p><p>“I mean,” Roy says, his smug bastard tone and smug bastard eyes only made worse by the slow, possessive stroke he runs over the ruin of Ed’s hair, “that we are just getting started.”</p>
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